Girl Reading at the Window 1911

Gwen John made this painting of a girl reading by a window, we don’t know when exactly, but it's oil on canvas. What strikes me is how the light seems to emanate from within the girl herself. The colors are muted, almost ghostly, but the way John applies the paint, so gently, gives the scene a deep sense of peace. Look at the way she renders the folds of the girl’s black dress, each stroke a delicate whisper. It's like John is revealing the inner life of her subject through the materiality of paint. There’s a tension between the flat surface of the canvas and the illusion of depth, the girl almost seems to float in the room. Bonnard comes to mind, another artist who found beauty in the everyday, but John's work has a quiet intensity that’s all her own. It’s in that quietness that the painting finds its strength.