Spaanse vrouw trekt een schoen aan 1893 - 1916

Alexandre Lunois made this print of a Spanish woman putting on a shoe sometime around the turn of the last century. The mark making is so delicate. It's not about big bold strokes, but rather a soft kind of seeing, a soft process. Look closely at how he renders the wall behind her: a mist of ochre and pink tones, like a memory of color. It reminds me that everything is in process and in motion. Notice the shadow, a dark looming presence, but the rest of the image is soft, a sunny disposition. The yellow of her shirt and the straw of the chair create an everyday calm. Then your eye travels down to her foot, disappearing into her shoe. It's a very modest, yet also sexy, moment of the everyday. Lunois reminds me a little of Bonnard, another artist obsessed with the intimacy of domestic life, but Lunois has a rawer edge, a more palpable sense of touch. For Lunois, as for many of us, art is a conversation, a passing of ideas across time.