Wedding Dress c. 1937

Arelia Arbo painted this watercolor of a wedding dress, sometime between 1855 and 1995. The dress is rendered with soft washes, almost like a memory fading into the paper. I am drawn to the way the artist has used the transparency of the watercolor to capture the ethereal quality of the fabric. See how she lets the paper breathe through the layers of paint? It gives the dress a luminous glow. Look at the ruffles at the bottom. The way she suggests the folds and curves with just a few strokes is so clever. It's not about perfect representation; it's about capturing the essence of the dress. Like a haiku, a few marks convey a lot of information. This kind of visual shorthand reminds me of Manet's quick, confident brushstrokes. Art, like memory, is about capturing fleeting moments. Arelia Arbo understood this, and she left us with a beautiful, poignant reminder of the power of suggestion.