Patience 1915

Robert Henri made this oil painting, a portrait, maybe while thinking about how to capture the energy of this little person in front of him. Henri probably set up his easel and squinted at the girl. The loose brushstrokes that make up her skin, dabbed with pink, seem to catch the light. I wonder what she's looking at, off to the side like that? The painter used a muted palette of earthy browns and creams, but there’s a liveliness in the way the paint's been applied. Look at the impasto of the burnt orange bow, a thick swaggering mark that suggests Henri was laying down a declaration: "This is how I see you." It feels like Henri, and other painters like Manet, were onto something similar – trying to distill a feeling into a painting through confident strokes and careful observation. It's a conversation, across time, that keeps sparking new ways of seeing.