Curatorial notes
Jessie Willcox Smith made "A Rainy Day" most likely with watercolors, capturing the feeling of being indoors with its warm and soft color palette. There’s something so inviting about the scene. It’s all in these gentle, muted colors, and how the light seems to glow from within, right? Look at the way the colors blend, especially in the mother's dress. It’s like she worked in layers to build this sense of coziness and warmth. There’s a real care in the way she uses the paint, not trying to hide the process, but letting it show through. This feels like a Norman Rockwell moment, but softer and more intimate. There’s that same sense of storytelling, of capturing a specific mood and time, like a little slice of life. Maybe like Mary Cassatt, in its focus on domestic life and relationships between women. I love how art can be like a conversation, artists responding to each other across time. There's no one right way to see it, only a bunch of different points of view.
