Nude Girl, Miss Leslie Hall 1909

George Bellows made this moody nude with oils on canvas; that dark background seems to swallow everything around the figure! It’s interesting to imagine Bellows in his studio, grappling with the light as he builds up the form of Miss Leslie Hall. You can almost feel the artist's hand as he blends those creamy highlights on her skin against the gloom. See how the brushstrokes around her shoulders are soft and blurred, while the lines defining her legs are much sharper and more deliberate? It gives the whole composition a kind of simmering tension. Bellows and his contemporaries like Robert Henri were really looking hard at Édouard Manet, using his style as a springboard to push their own ideas forward. There’s a similar commitment to depicting everyday subjects with an honest gaze, finding beauty and drama in the unvarnished reality of human experience. I reckon they're all in conversation, those painters, across time.