The Story Hour 1921

Lilla Cabot Perry created this painting of a mother reading to her children, it's a quiet moment, thick with the weight of family life. Look at the way she's worked the paint, softening the edges and allowing the forms to blur into one another. It’s a scene bathed in warm colours, light and shadow, giving a sense of intimacy, domesticity, the children’s bright hair echoing off the patterned wallpaper. You can imagine Perry building up the layers, scrubbing it back, finding her way through trial and error. The painting is a kind of exchange between the figures and their surroundings. I wonder what Perry was thinking when she made this? Was she thinking about the quiet moments that shape our lives, or trying to capture the fleeting nature of childhood? It makes me think of Mary Cassatt and other Impressionist painters who were interested in the everyday lives of women and children. They were all in conversation, trading ideas and inspiring one another to see the world in new ways. It's these kinds of artistic exchanges that keep painting alive.