Chick cigarettes de Virginie pures et sans adultération 1925

This is an advertising poster by Jean d'Ylen, and it’s just electric. Look at that blue background and the word "Chick" spelled out in hazy smoke. It’s just a swoosh of white paint, but somehow you can almost smell the cigarettes. I can imagine d’Ylen in his studio, paintbrush in hand, trying to capture the ephemeral quality of smoke, the way it curls and fades into nothingness. You know? It's such a dreamy image. Green swirls everywhere that make me think about the artist thinking about form, about shapes, about how to make this cigarette ad feel so luxurious. Painting like this is not just about rendering an image, it’s about creating a feeling, a mood, a whole world. Like Helen Frankenthaler’s soak-stain paintings, or maybe Joan Mitchell's explosion of color. It's all connected, this conversation between painters across time.