The End of Dinner 1913

Jules-Alexandre Grun seems to have made this painting, The End of Dinner, with oil paint. There’s a generosity to the way Grun applies the paint, like dabs of whipped cream, the colour palette soft and luminous. I love the table cloth, the way that it is white and pink, and how the white is so white, just for a moment, like a flash. It makes you understand artmaking as a process. The paint is thin in some places, thick in others, not quite transparent, not quite opaque. Look at that young woman on the left side of the painting – she's like a sketch, still emerging. There’s an ongoing conversation here about how to create an image, a scene. It makes me think of Manet, or maybe even Degas, but less angular. It's about a way of seeing, thinking, and experiencing the world. And in the end, it’s up to us to decide what it all means.