Portrait of Dorothy Wagstaff 1911

Robert Henri's ‘Portrait of Dorothy Wagstaff’ is made with oil on canvas. Look at the confident brushstrokes that model her face. He's not fussing with details. Instead, Henri captures something essential about her presence. I can imagine him stepping back, squinting, and then lunging forward to make those bold marks. There's a liveliness in the way he handles the paint, a sense of energy transferred from his hand to the canvas. He’s thinking about Velazquez for sure. The way the light catches the fabric of her dress, for example, feels both deliberate and spontaneous. And, I mean, that dress! It shimmers, it flows, it's almost like the paint itself is trying to become fabric. Artists like Henri and others keep this conversation going across time, inspiring one another to push the boundaries of what paint can do. It's a kind of dance. And in the end, all you're left with is the painting itself, which is kind of gorgeous, right?