Femme au chapeau rose et collier de perles 1912

Jean Metzinger made this painting of a woman in a pink hat and pearl necklace, and I'm imagining him dabbing and dragging the paint, building up these geometric facets with earthy browns, creamy whites, and just a blush of pink. I’m trying to imagine what it was like for him to construct a portrait piece by piece, angle by angle. It's like he's trying to capture not just what she looks like, but what it feels like to be in her presence – all the shimmering planes of light and shadow. The brushwork is so present, you can almost feel Metzinger's hand moving across the canvas, deciding where each shape begins and ends. That one dark triangular shadow that makes up part of her face – isn't that interesting? It communicates so much about the structure of her face, and the light falling on it, even though it's totally abstract. It reminds me how all painters are in dialogue, reaching back through time. We learn from each other, riffing off each other’s moves, trying to find our own way of seeing and feeling. Painting is an embodied expression, and it embraces ambiguity. There is no single interpretation here.