Robe de dentelle noire sur fond de liberty beige. 1919

This print, "Robe de dentelle noire sur fond de liberty beige," whoever made it, did so with such an economy of line! It's as if it was made on the fly, with a playful kind of intuitive mark-making. You can really see it in the way the artist handled the background, this field of blue that just floods the lower half of the image. It's almost like the ink was dragged across the page, so thinly applied in parts that you can still see the paper underneath. Then there's that little abandoned glove on the floor, like a little accident, a mistake that's left in. There's something almost Matisse-like about the boldness, the confidence in the color palette, and the way the artist has embraced this kind of freedom of line. It reminds me of how art-making is really just an ongoing conversation between artists, a constant process of exchange and reinterpretation, like a game of telephone that never ends!