Ida 

Vilhelm Hammershøi painted this portrait of his wife, Ida, using oil on canvas. Hammershøi's muted palette and careful brushwork give the painting a quiet, contemplative mood. You can almost feel the texture of the canvas beneath the thin layers of paint. He wasn’t using the impasto technique, where paint is laid on thickly, so it blends into a smooth surface, that is a mark of labor. Consider the social context: Hammershøi was working at a time when photography was becoming increasingly popular, but this didn’t stop him. He instead made paintings such as this to represent the interior life of his subject. Ultimately, Hammershøi’s paintings invite us to slow down and appreciate the beauty and nuance of the everyday. They show us that the value of a work of art lies not only in what it depicts, but also in how it is made, and how this relates to the artist’s own experiences.