Head of a little girl in a blue dress 1919

Tadeusz Makowski painted this portrait of a girl in a blue dress, with oils probably, and there is a real sense of him grappling with the medium. He builds up a really thick impasto, layering colors and textures, and it feels like he’s trying to capture not just her likeness but something of her inner world too. I see this earthy palette of browns, reds, and blues, and it gives the painting a kind of raw, honest feel, like he is scraping the paint on. There's a real physicality to the medium, you can almost feel the weight of the brushstrokes. Look at the way he renders the flesh tones, it feels so honest and unidealized. It puts me in mind of Paula Modersohn-Becker, a fellow artist interested in the real and the raw. Ultimately, art is about opening up conversations and exploring different ways of seeing and experiencing the world. There are no right or wrong answers, just different perspectives.