Girl with a Skipping Rope 1945

Oscar Dominguez’s ‘Girl with a Skipping Rope’ is painted with oil. It’s rendered in a muted palette, dominated by blues, yellows, and greens, with thick black outlines. I'm thinking that making this painting was like finding his way through a visual puzzle. You get the feeling Dominguez was trying to capture the energy of movement and the feeling of childhood. I imagine him thinking about what it feels like to jump and play in a childlike way. Take a look at the girl’s dress! See how it fans out like an umbrella as she jumps, forming a sort of circular structure. And note how the brushstrokes feel impulsive and raw. This recalls the work of artists like Picasso, especially in the way Dominguez reduces form to its most essential elements. All painters are in conversation with each other, building upon and responding to what came before. They create a network of creativity that spans generations. As viewers, we become part of that conversation, too. Paintings invite us to embrace ambiguity and uncertainty. Each time we look, we might see something new, something we hadn’t noticed before.