La Parisienne (6) 1902

Jacques Villon made this print, La Parisienne, sometime in the early twentieth century. It’s like a memory, or a half-remembered dream, all in these warm sepias, ochres, and siennas. I can imagine Villon, in his studio, in Paris, carefully layering the ink onto the plate, wiping it back, coaxing the image out of the metal. He’s building up these delicate lines, letting them suggest the form of this elegant woman, her dress, the chair she sits on. Look at the way he captures the light on her face, the way the lines seem to dance around her. I wonder, was he thinking of other artists who were also working in Paris at the time, like Toulouse-Lautrec or Degas? This work feels like a nod to that tradition, but also something entirely new, a new vision. It's like he’s inviting us to see the world in a different way, to find the beauty in the everyday, in the fleeting moments of life. Artists are always in conversation, aren't they?