Portrait of Jean McVitty 1919

Robert Henri painted this portrait of Jean McVitty with oil on canvas, and what strikes me is Henri’s sensitivity to color and tone. He really lets the pinks and browns of Jean’s skin and shawl sing against the dark background. You can tell Henri loved to paint – he isn’t interested in laboriously copying what he sees, but in finding the liveliness in the process of painting. Look at the way the paint sits on the surface. It’s thick in some places, particularly in the highlights of the shawl, and you can see the marks of his brushstrokes, almost like he’s sculpting with paint. The way he models the form of her face with these marks, especially around the cheekbones, makes her seem so alive, so present. And isn’t it great how he hasn’t fussed too much about the details, leaving a kind of deliberate ambiguity? I’m reminded of Sargent’s portraits; that same looseness of form. What I love is that in both artists’ work you get a real sense of the joy of painting, and the ongoing conversation between artists across time.