The Model and the Mannequins 1906

Carl Larsson made 'The Model and the Mannequins' in 1905, I imagine in his studio, with pencils and watercolour. You can see the layering of his marks. It's like a sketch, a study, a staging. I wonder what it was like for Larsson, in that moment of observing and drawing the model, next to the reclining mannequin. The contrast of the warm flesh tones next to the muted colours of the lifeless dummy. Perhaps he was thinking about the nature of representation, and the challenge of capturing human form and spirit. It's interesting to me that Larsson's left the drawn figures on the back wall. It feels like he wants us to see his process and, also, that all artwork is, in some way, a 'construction' of an idea. He reminds me of Degas who used to return again and again to the same subject, and how artists are forever in conversation, building on each other's ideas, and searching for new ways of seeing.