Girl at Her First Communion 1914

María Blanchard painted this "Girl at Her First Communion" with oil paints and an expressive hand. Look at that white dress, it feels both heavy and ghostly, doesn't it? Blanchard uses these creamy, almost chalky whites, offset by the dark shadows, creating a haunting effect. You can almost feel the weight of the dress, the starchiness of the fabric. It's all in the materiality, the thick paint and the way she manipulates it. See how the paint almost piles up in places, creating a kind of relief, a tactile surface. The way the folds of the dress swirl around the girls body and down to her feet. It's almost as if the fabric has a life of its own. I'm reminded of Paula Modersohn-Becker, another painter who wasn't afraid to depict the weight of the world, the heaviness of being. But Blanchard, she adds a certain fragility, a vulnerability that really gets to me. Isn't it interesting how artists keep talking to each other, across time and space, in this ongoing conversation? And isn't it great that art doesn't give us easy answers, but just opens up more questions?