Spanish Dancer 1906

Clarence Gagnon painted this Spanish Dancer with oils, though we don't know when, exactly. There's a real push and pull in the way this was made. It looks like he was trying to let loose, but also really trying to capture something specific. You can see how the paint is worked wet-into-wet, especially in her dress, but the edges of the figure are so crisp. Look how he used these juicy reds and oranges but then threw in the super dark shadow, which, if you look closely, isn't just black, it's got all kinds of dark blues and browns in there. It really makes the figure pop. My eye keeps going to the details in the folds of her dress, it’s like he was really feeling the movement. Gagnon reminds me a bit of someone like John Singer Sargent, who also loved to play with light and movement in his paintings. But Gagnon has his own thing going on, a little rougher around the edges, maybe a little more heartfelt. It makes you wonder, what was he really trying to capture?