Portrait of a Woman with a Red Ribbon 1885

This is Van Gogh’s “Portrait of a Woman with a Red Ribbon,” painted at an unknown date using oil on canvas. You can clearly see the visceral quality of paint, applied in thick, expressive brushstrokes. But for me, what’s equally compelling is the red ribbon itself. It’s a mass-produced object made of fabric, which in the 19th century would have been woven in a factory. We tend to think of portraits like this one as capturing an individual, but the portrait also suggests the sitters place within a web of larger material and economic realities. There's also the issue of labor. Van Gogh himself worked with furious intensity. To create a painting with this much visual energy demands a specific form of labor from him. It's easy to overlook how the amount of work involved in the production process impacts the final artwork. So, next time you look at a painting, think about how issues like labor and class play a role, just as much as individual expression. Recognizing the importance of materials, making, and context challenges these traditional distinctions.