Mujer Peinándose 1923

María Blanchard created this painting, Mujer Peinándose, with oil paint. It’s a scene of quiet intimacy, rendered in a palette of muted blues, greys, and browns. You can almost feel Blanchard’s presence in the studio. Imagine her, palette in hand, stepping back and forth, her eyes darting between the subject and the canvas. She must have been thinking about the everyday rituals that shape our lives, like brushing your hair, that become opportunities for reflection and self-examination. Look at the planes of color that form the woman's face and hands. Each brushstroke is deliberate, carefully placed to capture the light and shadow. I love the way she contrasts the smooth, flowing lines of the hair with the angular geometry of the mirror and the background. The influence of cubism is clear, but it’s softened by Blanchard’s own personal vision. It’s like she’s pulling apart the world and putting it back together in a new, more poetic way. Blanchard, like all artists, was in conversation with the painters who came before her, and those who were working alongside her. Painting, at its heart, is an embodied expression, where meaning arises through ambiguity and uncertainty.