Phonography 

Raoul Dufy’s painting, "Phonography," captures a moment of leisure with broad brushstrokes of oil on canvas. The materiality here isn’t about refinement, but immediacy. Dufy layers pigment, reveling in the fluid quality of the paint and the stark white of the canvas peeking through. The scene depicts two figures listening to a phonograph, surrounded by records and domestic objects. The rapid execution mirrors the fleeting pleasure of enjoying music in a bourgeois interior. The painting's loose handling suggests a celebration of modern life and consumer culture. The phonograph, a relatively new invention at the time, symbolizes technological advancement and mass production. The ease with which the scene is rendered stands in contrast to the labor required to produce both the artwork and the mass-produced objects it depicts. Ultimately, Dufy's approach reminds us that even seemingly simple pleasures are deeply entwined with broader social and economic systems.