The Flute Player 

Charles-Amable Lenoir made this painting of an unnamed flute player with oil on canvas, sometime around the turn of the 20th century. In many ways, the real subject here is paint itself. Notice how Lenoir teases out the qualities of the oil medium: its capacity to be blended and layered, creating an illusion of depth. He's particularly interested in light and shadow, which, of course, are just skillful arrangements of pigment. The folds of her dress are rendered with particular care, a cascade of white, activated by subtle gradations. This was an era that prized painterly skill, a kind of virtuoso handling that had been developing for centuries, and arguably reached its peak in the late 1800s. The woman may or may not be a real flute player, and the setting may be a real place, but these aspects are much less important than Lenoir’s technique, training, and facility. He is showing off, and we are invited to admire the sheer skill involved. Paint, like any material, has its own inherent qualities, its own history. Considering these is key to understanding any work of art.