Portrait Of Diaz Albertini 1909

This is a portrait of Diaz Albertini, painted by Giovanni Boldini. The brushstrokes are lively, almost like the paint is dancing across the canvas. It's all about capturing a feeling, an impression, rather than a precise likeness. Boldini wasn't trying to hide the process. You can see how the paint is applied, thick in some areas and thin in others. Look at the way he's rendered the fur stole: it's just a flurry of strokes, but it suggests texture and volume. The long flowing dress and pearls draw the eye from top to bottom, but it's the loose brushstrokes around the figure that draw me in. Boldini, like Sargent, was part of a generation of painters who were moving away from realism and towards something more expressive. There's a sense of ambiguity and freedom in this painting, a reminder that art is never about fixed meanings, but always about possibilities.