Nightgown c. 1940

Marie Alain made this drawing of a nightgown with pencil on paper. Just look at the dedication and labor that went into rendering every ruffle and piece of lace! The details are incredible. The paper has aged and taken on a slightly darker tone which gives the white nightgown an even more ghostly appearance. It’s as though Alain is documenting a memory or longing for something that can only be captured in the imagination. The ruffles around the neckline remind me of a halo, and those soft shadows that fall just so, they evoke a mood that feels both tender and melancholic. I think about the way Agnes Martin used a similar sort of repetition and soft palette to convey her feelings of innocence, beauty, and the sublime. But where Martin moved into abstraction, Alain stayed with the concrete. Isn’t it funny how a simple rendering of a nightgown can trigger so many thoughts and feelings? That’s the magic of art: it’s an open-ended conversation.