Studies in expression. The author and the soubrette 1902

Charles Dana Gibson drew these expressive figures using ink on paper; look how the characters came into being, shifting and emerging through trial, error, and intuition. I sympathise with the artist and imagine what it might have been like to create this scene. What was he thinking when he made it? There's something so alive about the gestures; that angry man on the left, with his hands clasped, feels like a stand-in for all directors everywhere. But the pen lines, they aren't just descriptive, they're expressive. They communicate feeling, intention, meaning. When I look at drawings like this, I think about other artists like Daumier and the long, ongoing conversation of artists across time, inspiring one another’s creativity. Painting is an embodied expression which embraces ambiguity and uncertainty, allowing for multiple interpretations and meaning over fixed or definitive readings.