Portrait of Ambroise Vollard c. 1904

This is Renoir’s portrait of Ambroise Vollard, a drawing, made with graphite on paper. It shows an artist thinking through mark-making, not striving for perfection, but embracing the immediacy and vulnerability of the gesture. Look at the layering of lines that build up Vollard’s jacket and beard. It’s so easy to get hung up on accuracy, but Renoir is showing us something else: the process of seeing, the act of translating three dimensions onto a flat surface. The graphite is soft, almost powdery in places, and the pressure varies, giving the lines a rhythmic quality, like musical notation. The blank space around Vollard isn’t just emptiness; it’s part of the composition, giving the portrait room to breathe. Renoir, like many artists, shows how art isn't about answers, but about questions, a constant back-and-forth between intention and accident, control and release. I'm thinking of Degas, also wrestling with similar things.