Portrait Of Lady In Blue 1905

Raimundo de Madrazo painted this portrait of a lady in blue in oil paint, we think, at some point, and when looking at it, I can see artmaking as a process. The painting has this great tension between defined forms, like the woman’s face, and these more gestural areas, like the background. It's not about clear lines, more about how the colors interact, how one stroke suggests the next. I love the materiality of the paint here. It's neither thick nor thin, but somewhere in between, which gives the image this kind of vibrant, living quality. Look at the fur stole, see how the loose brushstrokes almost dissolve into the shadows? Those confident strokes give the painting a kind of energy, where the process becomes part of the image. The portrait reminds me of some of Manet’s looser, more informal portraits. But with Madrazo, there’s also this Spanish sensibility. It’s a beautiful example of how art can be both specific and open-ended.