The Trio, Tokyo, Japan 1901

Lilla Cabot Perry painted The Trio in Tokyo, Japan, with oil on canvas, and you can see that she built the image up from small strokes of colour, like a mosaic, or maybe even musical notes. The surface is a little rough, and the colours a little muted, but it's so very present, as if the act of painting was the same as making music. There's a sort of tonal hum in the way she’s matched the whites of the women’s dresses to the rice paper screen behind them; a visual echo, perhaps. I keep getting drawn back to the hands of the pianist. The touch here is so sure, so economical, a little dab of shadow here, a suggestion of a knuckle there, and the curve of a wrist implied in the fall of light on a sleeve. It reminds me a bit of Bonnard, particularly in its intimacy and the way the light seems to vibrate with feeling. It also shares a process-based approach where the painting feels very much alive in the moment. This is a piece that celebrates the ambiguities of life, a snapshot of an ongoing conversation in a world of ever-shifting ideas.