Woman Reading 1909

Pierre-Auguste Renoir made this small painting of a Woman Reading with oil on canvas. Just imagine how the painting came into being, shifting and emerging through trial, error, and intuition. I sympathize with Renoir and imagine what it might have been like to create this piece. What was he thinking? This work is an intimate portrayal featuring a woman immersed in her book. The paint is delicately applied with broken brushstrokes, softening edges and contours and creating a sense of light and atmosphere. The pink of her dress is offset by the cool greens and blues of the background. Look at the way the figure seems to emerge from the ground. It’s not just a person, it's the feeling of a person. All artists are in conversation with the history of art. You know, what someone does, then someone else sees it, and does something with that something. This piece celebrates painting as a form of embodied expression, embracing ambiguity and uncertainty and allowing for multiple interpretations.