Bust of a Young Woman in a Red Blouse 1915

Pierre-Auguste Renoir’s ‘Bust of a Young Woman in a Red Blouse’ seems to have emerged, unplanned, from a swirl of brushstrokes. There’s a lovely, almost edible quality to the paint, which he’s applied thinly in layers to create depth. Look closely, and you can see a whole host of different colours. He’s conjuring the effect of light on skin, rather than just reproducing what he sees; that lovely flush of colour he gives her cheeks, for example. It reminds me of my own approach, where the process of applying paint becomes more important than the image itself. Consider how the red of the blouse is picked up in the face, creating a sense of unity. Now look at the mark making, see how he builds up the forms through a series of small dabs and dashes, a shorthand for rendering form that creates an overall impression of warmth and vitality. Renoir’s contemporary, Berthe Morisot, also explored similar ideas about the suggestive potential of the unfinished. Art becomes a conversation across time; a space of possibility, rather than a fixed statement.