Child with Bangs in a Blue Dress 1910

Mary Cassatt made this pastel drawing of a child in a blue dress sometime in the late 19th century. Look at the scribbly energy of those pastel marks! See how they swirl around the child’s head and shoulders, almost like she's radiating light. You can almost feel Cassatt pressing down hard, then easing up to create this delicate balance of form and surface. I wonder what Cassatt was thinking when she made this? Maybe she was trying to capture the fleeting innocence of childhood or the way light defines form. It reminds me a little of Degas, also a pastel obsessive, but Cassatt brings a particular tenderness to her depiction of women and children. This one has such a fresh directness. It's not trying to be slick or polished. It celebrates the immediacy of the medium. The texture of the paper peeks through, and the colors blend right before your eyes. These choices remind us that artists are always speaking to each other, riffing on ideas. You get a sense of the endless possibilities of painting and drawing.