Elle et Lui ; France XXe siècle 1922

George Barbier’s ‘Elle et Lui,’ probably made around 1921, is a fashion plate from France, and it just oozes a playful sensibility! I can almost feel him at work with his gouache and stencils, layering colors like a confectioner adding icing to a cake. Look at that purple dress, almost brown but not quite, next to that yellow drape. What might Barbier have been thinking as he created this scene? Was he amused by the artifice of fashion, or was he celebrating it? The way he's rendered the clouds—those soft, hazy shapes—makes me think of dreams or memories, something fleeting. But then, bam! Those hard, flat tones pull you right back into the present moment. What a trickster! Ultimately, Barbier’s little world of fancy and dress-up is another reminder that we painters are all magpies, borrowing and remixing, trying to get to the heart of what it means to see, to feel, and to be alive. Each generation inspiring and responding to the last.