Peasant Woman 1909

Ipolit Strambu painted this piece, 'Peasant Woman', with oil. You can tell he’s really thinking about the softness of form here. The colour palette is mostly muted, with a kind of hazy, dreamlike quality, where everything blends together. Looking at the painting, you see how the texture isn’t trying to hide itself. The brushstrokes are visible, especially in the folds of her headscarf. It’s like Strambu wants us to see the painting as something made, something physical, not just an illusion. I keep coming back to the way her face is rendered. It's like she's caught in a moment of reflection, and Strambu captures that beautifully. It reminds me a little bit of some of Vuillard's portraits, that same sense of quiet introspection. Ultimately, this painting feels like an invitation to slow down and really look, to embrace the ambiguities and find our own meaning in the quiet moments it captures.