Girl in a Birch Forest c. 1903

Paula Modersohn-Becker’s ‘Girl in a Birch Forest’ feels like a quiet observation, made with oil paint, maybe en plein air. Look at how the verticals of the birch trunks create a kind of screen, a permeable architecture, through which we glimpse the girl. The paint here is direct, scrubby, not overly fussed with. It’s a sensory experience, like feeling the rough bark of the trees against your skin. It's not about perfect representation but about conveying an experience, and an intimacy with the subject. Notice the way the girl’s dress is formed with these broad strokes of warm, earthy red. It’s a simple shape, but within it, you can feel the weight of the fabric, the way it hangs and folds. I see echoes of Van Gogh in the way Modersohn-Becker uses paint to build form and convey emotion, but there’s also something uniquely her own here. It feels both immediate and timeless.