Portrait of a Chamorro Woman - Blue 1934

Paul Jacoulet made this portrait of a Chamorro Woman in 1934, and what grabs me is the dance of blues, a whole symphony of them laid down with such care. You can see the artist working through the process of how colour can define a form. The way Jacoulet layers the blues in her outfit, it's almost like he’s thinking about the interplay between pattern and depth, and the balance between opacity and transparency. I keep coming back to the sleeve on the right. See how the blue seems to float, almost like a watercolour, yet it still holds its shape? That for me is where the magic happens. It’s like the colour is breathing, alive on the surface. There’s something of Utamaro here, in the focus on beauty as a form of art, but it feels like Jacoulet is also playing with the European tradition of portraiture. For me it is a reminder that art is always in conversation, always building on what came before, and that the conversation itself is the point.