Niña Leyendo 1928

María Blanchard painted "Niña Leyendo" with oil on canvas, and the way she’s applied the paint is really where it's at. It’s thick, but it’s also kind of washy, like she was pushing the paint around the canvas, trying to get it just right. Look at the surface quality, how she built up the paint around the girl's face. It’s so expressive. It's like she’s not just painting a portrait, but actually trying to capture the feeling of being lost in a book. There’s a lot of brown and red, but also these pops of bright white on the page that really bring it to life. The texture is almost crusty in places, which gives the painting a real sense of depth and history. Blanchard reminds me of Paula Modersohn-Becker who also used a similar color palette. For me, these paintings aren’t about perfection but about capturing a fleeting moment, an emotion, or an idea.