The Green Blouse 1904

Samuel Peploe captured this person with oil on canvas and a certain tender attention. The blouse itself is not really green at all but rather grey, and the brushwork seems pretty free and loose. I bet it took time to find that kind of looseness. When you look closer, you can see how the artist works, in the way the paint lies on the surface with so much care and attention. I wonder what Peploe was thinking, when he made this? Maybe he was looking at Manet. I see that in the quick, confident strokes and the way the figure emerges from the dark ground, but is still so present, so much there. I imagine him experimenting, working from observation but also inventing and creating. That's what painting is, isn't it? A constant conversation between artists, each building on the ideas of the others and trying to bring something new to the table.