Visage jaune c. 1948

Léonor Fini sketched ‘Visage jaune’ with ink and watercolor, bringing the face into being through thin washes of colour and tentative line work. I love the fluidity of the portrait and the strange melancholia of the subject. You can see Fini working and reworking the line, searching for the form, and letting the paint bleed and pool on the page. What was she thinking, I wonder, as she felt her way into the face? Was she working from life, or from imagination? Maybe she was interested in working on paper, and in how the ink sits on its surface? Look at the eyes. The intense gaze of the figure is at odds with the ephemeral nature of the composition. There’s a tension between the yellow of the eyes and the pallor of the face. You can see a trace of Schiele here, I think, with the thin skin and haunted expression. All artists are in conversation with one another, borrowing and lending. Each is trying to catch something of the world.