The Red Curtain 1929

Giovanni Boldini captured this woman with oils, rendering her a smoking muse framed by that titular red curtain. Look at that background wash of warm color. He’s clearly painting alla prima, wet on wet, figuring it out as he goes. I imagine him circling the canvas, taking drags of his own cigarette. He is working fast! Getting it all down: the knowing arch of her brow, the smoldering cigarette, that curtain like a stage for her thoughts. Painters like Boldini always get me thinking about Velasquez. How he painted the air, how the air changed the figure, how the figure was in the air. He wasn't just painting a person; he was capturing the moment in all its hazy ambiguity. It's all about that exchange. Painters are always talking to other painters, you know, trying to suss out what they were thinking, how they saw the world, how they saw their own time. And how they let it all bleed into the painting.