Madame Hessel in an Interior c. 1910

Édouard Vuillard made this drawing of Madame Hessel in an interior; it’s all scribbled lines in graphite, a momentary capture of fleeting forms. I imagine Vuillard sitting across from his subject, quickly sketching what he sees, trying to capture not just the appearance of the room but also its atmosphere and the presence of the people within it. I wonder, what was on his mind as his pencil danced across the page? What parts of the room or of Madame Hessel caught his attention? How did he choose what to include and what to leave out? That looping line, for example, just below Madame Hessel’s chest—is it a strand of hair, a necklace, or a piece of her clothing? Vuillard is interested in something more evocative, I think, a dance between suggestion and form. Painters, you know, we’re all in conversation with each other across time, riffing on each other's ideas. And it’s exactly this kind of openness, where meaning is fluid and unfixed, that allows for endless new interpretations.