Girl with a Plate with a Folk Motif 1920

Alphonse Mucha made this painting of a girl with a plate in 1920 with oil on canvas. There’s something about Mucha's marks in this painting that feels tentative, as if he is feeling his way through the image, rather than dictating its form. I can almost feel the physical act of painting here, the slightly dry brushstrokes across the surface of the plate, and the smudged, faded colour palette which reminds me of his illustrative work. Look at the way that the colour pools at the edges of the girl's eyes, or the suggestive lines that define her hair. In these details I can really appreciate how Mucha's approach to painting is deeply rooted in a process-oriented way of seeing. It reminds me of Klimt in some ways, or maybe Paula Modersohn-Becker, though there is a certain folk quality about Mucha's work that feels distinct.