Gibson Girl 1901

Charles Dana Gibson drew this iconic “Gibson Girl,” using ink to hatch out a kind of ideal. She's got a gaze, doesn't she? I'm thinking about the artist hovering over this surface, maybe a little nervous, feeling the pressure to nail the image, but also kinda free, letting the ink flow. Look at those confident lines that define her profile and the delicate shading that gives her face dimension. He's using just black and white, but it feels like there's a whole world of color hiding in those marks. That hair is a whole situation, isn't it? Each stroke builds the volume of the hair, a playful dance between control and chance, almost a separate character. I wonder if he knew he was creating a standard of beauty, or if he was just trying to capture something he saw, felt, imagined. Whether it’s fashion illustration, or portraiture, it’s all painting, all the same problems, just different.