Rochelle 

Curator: Let's turn our attention now to the portrait of "Rochelle," painted by Robert Brackman. Notice the subtle brushstrokes and the way Brackman uses light. Editor: She looks like she's contemplating something serious. I wonder what she’s thinking. Maybe something juicy. The color palette is all muted, except for that daring slash of red peeking out from behind her shoulder. Curator: The composition adheres to certain established conventions of portraiture, focusing primarily on the subject's face and upper torso. Consider the treatment of form; observe how it’s less about photographic accuracy, more about rendering an overall impression, a feeling. Editor: "Feeling" is a good word for it! It feels like… nostalgia dipped in melancholy. Those soft edges, the way the light melts across her face, gives the picture a dreamy air. Her blue blouse is somber. She knows the price of beauty. Curator: The absence of a definite date necessitates reliance on internal evidence such as technique and stylistic affinities. The paint handling speaks of impressionistic and realistic influence with the interplay of light and shadow suggesting depth while simultaneously flattening the picture plane, which, considered with semiotic understanding, invites us to question notions of... Editor: (Interrupting) Woah, hang on. She reminds me of one of those silent film stars, all hidden depths behind the delicate features. I bet she had secrets, dark ones, romantic ones… the kind of secrets that fueled the art deco movement, huh? Curator: While the artwork presents us with various stylistic approaches, such speculation falls outside formalist analysis. The emotional narratives read by you, or by another viewer, become extrinsic factors that move us away from the artwork itself, understood on its own terms. Editor: But isn't part of the fun seeing what an artwork stirs up in you? The beauty of art is that it can hold many meanings! This painting makes you want to reach through time, just to see how many tales a face like that can hide. Curator: To be fair, focusing on just structural features of art can be equally enlightening and restrictive. "Rochelle," after all, encapsulates much that we still grapple with today around art and affect, objective and subjective values. Editor: Yeah, seeing her has nudged something in my spirit, that’s all I know. Worth more than its weight in paint!