Martche 1907

Robert Henri's 'Martche' feels like it was painted in a flash, with oil on canvas. The dark background lets the light colors float forward. Look at the way the blues and whites of her dress seem to shimmer. There is this great passage on the right of the dress, where the paint is built up into almost a little sculpture. The strokes feel fast and loose, but they describe the folds of the fabric in a real way. The pink of her cheeks is echoed by the tiny bow in her hair, a detail which feels both touching and slightly unsettling. This kind of directness, this sense of immediacy, reminds me of Manet, who also worked to capture the fleeting qualities of light and life with these quick, gestural brushstrokes. Like Manet, Henri seems to be asking questions about what it means to see, and how painting can be a record of that seeing. The painting holds a lot of ambiguity, more feeling than fact.