Woman Wearing a Rose Andree 1919

This is Renoir's painting of a woman with a rose, probably made with oil paint on canvas, sometime in the late 19th century. Look at those brushstrokes, light and feathery, like he’s barely touched the surface. You can almost see him dancing around the canvas, dabbing here, stroking there, trying to catch the light on her skin and in her hair. There's a real lightness of touch in the way he's captured the woman's likeness, almost like a fleeting impression. I wonder what he was thinking as he painted her? Was he trying to capture her beauty, or something more? Maybe he was just enjoying the play of light and color, letting the paint flow where it would. It makes you think about all the other artists who have tried to capture the human form, and all the different ways they've found to do it. Each one is unique and tells us something new about ourselves. It reminds you that art is just one big conversation between artists, across time.