Portrait of a Lady 1920

Philip Alexius de László captured this woman in paint, and what a fluid, swooping kind of paint it is. I can almost feel the artist circling his subject, trying to capture her ephemeral beauty. The way he models her face and hands feels confident and knowing, but then her dress seems to dissolve into wisps of gray and lavender. Did you notice the string of beads looping across the painting? It’s like László wanted to pin her down with that bright green thread. I wonder if he kept circling back to that green, letting it seep into the rest of the painting. It reminds me of Sargent’s portraits, the way he balanced observation with a kind of painterly flourish. László wasn't just recording what he saw; he was feeling his way through the act of painting itself. It’s this conversation between what’s seen and what’s felt that makes looking at painting so exciting.