Maltese Girl 1909

Albert Belleroche made this print, Maltese Girl, using lithography, which is so cool because it's all about grease and water, pushing and pulling. I can feel Belleroche’s hand moving across the stone, the press grinding, and the image slowly revealing itself. The girl emerges, her face soft, her eyes downcast, cloaked in shadow. Was she a muse, a lover, or just someone he saw on the street? It’s hard to tell. I imagine him sketching quickly, capturing her essence, the light catching her face, trying to nail her mood. There's something so intimate about the way he’s rendered her—almost like a whisper. I feel a kinship to Käthe Kollwitz, and other artists who embrace the starkness and emotional intensity of black and white, where the absence of color amplifies feeling. It’s a reminder that artists are in constant conversation, riffing off each other, borrowing and lending ideas, trying to get at something real. Painting always leaves space for the uncertain, allowing a painting to express ambiguity.