Kissing the Flag 1919

Jean-Louis Forain made this drawing called *Kissing the Flag*, and you can see it at The Art Institute of Chicago. It’s all in pencil, and looking at it, I imagine Forain, squinting, totally focused, working those lines, building up the forms, and then leaving parts open, almost unfinished. It feels immediate, right? Like he's trying to capture a feeling more than a likeness. I can see him there, really feeling for this soldier, who’s almost collapsing under the weight of what he's holding, what he represents. Think about the other artists at the time. They were also dealing with war, and its effect on people and society. It makes you wonder what conversations they might have been having about how to show all this. How to show the pride, the loss, the confusion. It’s like, artists are always in a conversation across time. They're always picking up where someone else left off, trying to figure things out, together.