Ionian dancing girl 1902

John William Godward made this painting of an Ionian dancing girl, we don’t know when or with what. But I like to imagine the way the painting came into being, shifting and emerging through trial, error, and intuition. I feel for the artist. It must have been so tempting to lose himself in the decorative details, the marble, the sea and foliage, the tambourine, the girl’s dress, and the leopard skin. Instead, he’s kept it all so simple, so pared back. The painting is so tight. It's smooth, and very highly worked. All that precision is both admirable and kind of weird. But I also see how this is a painter's attempt to think through looking. His gaze meets ours, and we can imagine how the piece relates to other painters across time.