Maria y Consuelo 1906

Robert Henri made this painting of Maria y Consuelo with oil paint. I can imagine him mixing and blending to conjure the cool dark background which makes the mother and child stand out. The paint is applied so freely, so boldly. The brushstrokes are really visible. You can almost feel his hand moving across the canvas, capturing a fleeting moment. I wonder, was he thinking about Velazquez as he painted this? The way the figures emerge from the darkness is so reminiscent of Spanish Baroque painting. But there's also something so modern about it. The immediacy of the brushwork, the sense of movement. Henri was part of the Ashcan School, a group of artists who wanted to paint real life, not idealized versions of it, and his art feels radical. It is like he's not just painting a mother and child, but capturing the energy, the feeling of that relationship. This is painting as a form of inquiry.