The Quiet Pet 1906

John William Godward made "The Quiet Pet", and he really committed to it. The ultra-fine brushstrokes and soft, glowing colours seem to vibrate in front of your eyes. Can you imagine the slow, deliberate process of layering those strokes? I'm really sympathizing with Godward here. He's got this scene in his head – marble balustrades, a sleepy woman, a bored tortoise – but then he has to actually conjure the scene into being. He has to build it from the ground up, layer by layer. The amount of detail is mind-blowing. Think of the folds in her dress, the texture of the fur, the smoothness of the marble, and the tiny tortoise! It's all so real. The stillness and silence in this painting remind me of the Italian painter Giorgio Morandi, who seemed to be painting the same collection of bottles for years. Godward, like Morandi, seems to be meditating on time, space, and the nature of seeing. He's having a conversation with the past. He's in dialogue with the old masters, reinterpreting them for a new audience.