Three women at a market stall 1906

Paula Modersohn-Becker made this drawing of three women at a market stall with charcoal, and it's all about the marks. It is scratchy, smudgy, rubbed, and raw. You can almost feel her hand moving across the page. I can imagine Paula standing there, maybe a little bit in the way, trying to capture the scene. What do you focus on? Do you look at each individual potato, or the overall feeling of the market? She’s trying to get at something more essential than just what things look like. Her marks aren’t labored. They don't belabor the point. The composition isn't fussy. The figures feel monumental, like she’s been looking at Cézanne. But there's also something very immediate and personal about it. Modersohn-Becker died very young, and you can feel the urgency in her work. Painters like her remind me that it’s okay for art to be a little bit messy, a little bit unresolved. It’s in that space of uncertainty that something really interesting can happen. That's how artists converse across time, inspiring each other.