Sketch of Ellen My Cassatt in a Big Blue Hat 1905

Mary Cassatt created this oil on canvas painting called "Sketch of Ellen Mary Cassatt in a Big Blue Hat," and what strikes me first is the immediacy of the brushstrokes and the soft color palette. Look at the confident strokes that define the shape of Ellen's hat – each dab of paint feels deliberate, but also playful. You can almost see Cassatt squinting at the light, trying to capture how it hits the planes of the face. I bet she's thinking, "How can I catch this fleeting moment?" The paint is thin, allowing the canvas to breathe, which lends it a certain lightness. And that hat, it’s like a cloud resting above her brow, casting a gentle shadow that softens her gaze. There is something very Edgar Degas about this painting. I imagine that the artist saw the work of Degas and it helped her unlock a way of expressing herself in paint. In the end, it's these conversations, across time and space, that make painting such a living, evolving thing.