Elinor, Jean and Anna 1920

George Bellows created this painting of three women, Elinor, Jean, and Anna, with oil on canvas, and the way he builds up the forms is really interesting to me. There’s this almost sculptural quality to the figures, especially in the faces, built up with layers and layers of paint. It's thick and kind of clunky, but so expressive. You can almost feel him wrestling with the paint, trying to capture something real about these women. Look at the hands of the older woman on the left, and how the light catches on the knuckles and fingers. There's a sense of weight and history in those hands, captured through the physicality of the paint itself. It makes me think a little of Alice Neel, who also wasn't afraid to show the messiness and awkwardness of being human. And, like Neel, Bellows invites us to see the world in a new way. Not perfect, not polished, but raw, honest, and alive.