Lady in Blue 1910

Thomas Wilmer Dewing made this drawing called 'Lady in Blue', in what looks like pastel, on a brown paper. Look at the way he's built up the image: loose lines, hatching, and smudging. He’s been adding pastel, then taking it away. It makes me wonder what he was thinking and feeling as he made it. Was he trying to capture a likeness, or was he more interested in the way the light played across the woman's dress? I especially like the way the blue pops against the ochre. There's a real sense of movement and energy in those marks. It feels so fresh and alive, like Dewing was really in the moment, responding to the model in front of him. And the way the colors blend and bleed into each other—it’s gorgeous. You can see the influence of other artists like Whistler in Dewing’s work, but he’s also got his own unique voice. It reminds us that artists are always in conversation with each other, borrowing and building on each other's ideas. It’s all about the back and forth.