Liggende pige i chemise. "La petite Rousse" 1929

Jules Pascin made this drawing, Liggende pige i chemise or "La petite Rousse," with pencil, and it's currently held at the Statens Museum for Kunst. There's a real tenderness in the marks, see how they almost dissolve into the paper? It's like he’s gently coaxing the image into existence, rather than forcing it. The surface is soft, smudged in places, like a half-remembered dream. Look at the way he's handled the shadows around her torso; those dense, scribbled lines contrast with the almost ethereal lightness of her face. It's a kind of push and pull, a back-and-forth between presence and absence, solidity and ethereality. You get the feeling Pascin wasn't after a perfect likeness, but rather a feeling, an atmosphere. Think about how that relates to the way Rodin used drawing as a starting point for his sculpture, and how both artists share an interest in depicting states of being. Ultimately it's not about answers, but about the questions the artwork invites us to ask.