Lucinda, Mexican Girl 1917

Robert Henri painted 'Lucinda, Mexican Girl' with visible, confident brushstrokes and a palette that’s both bold and soft. Looking at it, I imagine Henri, brush in hand, circling around the canvas, maybe squinting, trying to capture not just what Lucinda looked like, but what she *felt* like. The green jacket, rendered in broad strokes, almost vibrates against the pink of her blouse. See how the paint is applied thickly, giving the whole thing a kind of sculptural quality? There's a real push and pull in this painting, a tension between the solid form of the girl and the way the paint seems to dissolve around her. I can almost feel Henri’s struggle and excitement as he tries to pin down something fleeting, something real. This reminds me of work by Alice Neel, the way she was able to capture a likeness and create a sense of the sitter's interiority. It shows how painters are constantly wrestling with how to represent the world. Each brushstroke is a tiny act of translation.