Portrait of Mrs Emily Montgomery-Lang 1911

Jacques-Émile Blanche made this portrait of Mrs Emily Montgomery-Lang, and it's all about that dress, right? I mean, just look at those brushstrokes describing the satin! You can almost feel the slick surface. What do you think he was thinking when he brushed that deep purple? Was he trying to capture something beyond mere likeness, maybe a whole mood? The way the light catches on the curves, it almost feels like the dress is alive, shimmering and folding into itself. Artists, we're always chasing that feeling, that moment when paint stops being just pigment and starts being something else – a gesture, a feeling, a whole conversation. Like Philip Guston said, "Painting is impure. It is the adjustment of impurities that forces painting's inventiveness". You see echoes of that search here in the portrait of Mrs Emily.