At the Mirror 1936

Gerda Wegener created 'At the Mirror' using watercolour, and you can feel the slippery wetness of it! Look at the confident and coquettish gaze of the woman looking back at herself in the mirror. I imagine Wegener standing at her easel, trying to capture that fleeting expression. The brushstrokes are delicate, almost tentative, as if she's trying to capture a ghost. Her work often portrayed women in intimate and sensual settings, and I bet that she wanted to express her own complex feelings and identity through them. I love how the green dress pops against the soft skin tones and the grey of the man and the glass bottle, it draws you right in. The surface tension is palpable, like a shared secret between the artist, the subject, and us, the viewers. You can almost smell the perfume! It reminds me of other paintings that capture the quiet moments of introspection and the artifice of performance. The conversation between painters across time is so intimate, it goes right into your soul.