Bathing Sheet 1906

Here's Eero Järnefelt's "Bathing Sheet," painted with oils, likely en plein air. Look at how the strokes of green and white have built up into the foliage and water. I love to imagine the artist outside in the landscape working quickly to capture the light as it moves. You can almost feel the breeze and smell the damp earth. It's so immediate! The female figure and the sheet are rendered softly, almost dissolving into the background. I am really drawn to the folds in the white sheet, cascading down with a subtle gradation of light. Notice how the artist has left areas of the canvas bare or thinly painted, to create depth, and capture the fleeting qualities of light and shadow. It's as if the painting itself is a kind of shimmering surface. Artists like Järnefelt were looking at Impressionism. It’s all one big conversation of painters responding to each other across time. Paintings like this invite us into the realm of uncertainty and possibility, where we are free to dream.