The coach house 1907

Ramón Casas created this painting of a coach house with oils, and you can almost feel him there. It is a study in the contrast between old and new, and the warmth of the brown and red hues throughout the composition gives it a cozy feeling. The composition is split between figures in conversation and horse-drawn carriages and an early automobile. Imagine Casas, there in that building, moving between the carriages and the car, capturing the scene that he found. Was he thinking about modernity? Was he thinking about the ways that the world around him was changing, and the ways that it was staying the same? I like to think about the other painters that he admired, who were also thinking about how to capture the feeling of real life in the late 19th and early 20th century. How can the painter be true to what they see, and how can they also make something new? That tension is there in this painting, and it's something that all painters continue to grapple with.