[Study in Orange] 1903

René Le Bègue made this "Study in Orange" using chalk, sometime between 1870 and 1914. Look at the way the orange chalk is layered, almost like he was feeling out the forms. It’s interesting how chalk, as a material, allows for both precision and a kind of dreamy vagueness. The figures emerge from and recede back into the ground. See how the lines around the figures aren’t really lines at all but more like a cloud of chalk dust clinging to the edges? It’s like the figures are breathing, or dissolving. The overall effect reminds me of Redon, another artist who knew how to conjure the invisible. With that single color, and just a stick of chalk, Bègue coaxes these ghostly figures into being. For Bègue and Redon, art wasn't about capturing reality; it was about inventing new ones.