Baby Lying on His Mother s Lap, reaching to hold a scarf 1914

Mary Cassatt made this painting of a baby reaching for a scarf on his mother's lap with pastel on paper. Look at the marks, the way the colors are laid down, orange against blue—almost like a Seurat pointillist painting but softer, warmer. You can imagine her building up the image layer by layer. It’s like she is caressing the paper, gently coaxing the image into being. I wonder what Cassatt was thinking, trying to capture that feeling of tenderness between a mother and child? The diagonal pull of the scarf, that bright slash of red, it’s like a visual lifeline connecting them, drawing our eyes into their intimate world. And those hands, the way they meet—the mother’s protective, the baby’s curious—it reminds me of some Renaissance Madonna, but way more real, more human. Painters, we're always riffing off each other, stealing ideas, and remixing them. It is a conversation across time. We learn from each other, we argue with each other, but mostly, we inspire each other to keep going, to keep exploring the endless possibilities of painting.