From the 1860s into the 1930s, a period that might be called the grand tradition of painting, the task of visual artists was to respond to visual sensations. Manet, Cèzanne, and Matisse each spoke of the subject as merely a prompt. The experience of looking was broken down into visual pieces and the pieces would be put back together according to the will of the painter. Painters did not do portraits, as such, where the task was to achieve a likeness if not a visual expression of the very personality of the model. Instead, as Cèzanne inimitably advised, “Paint the head as you would a door knob.”

You can see the difference by comparing the sensibility of Nicolai Fechin with Edgar Degas. 

That Fechin was a master painter is not in question. I can admire the skill and brushwork and the wonderfully presented likeness. But at the same time, the painting (above) feels distant, as though the model were far away, separate from my time and space. This may be because painting is about the face, not the space in which the model poses. It’s a portrait. She’s gorgeous but I would have preferred a study where the face is not prioritized, where the head, in space, is more of a door knob.

These are figure studies by Degas. It is not about the beauty or the psychology of the models. It is more about the pedagogy of sensations, of being alive at that moment, in a space with others in that space. It’s about an affective attachment, a moment of pure presence that is alive a century after the hand of Degas touched the paper. The models were just a prompt.

Again Degas. This work (above) is a study. We can see construction lines where values separate, none where values melt. The colors are somber and minimal and appropriate given that the model is against the light. I feel as though I could be in that room.

Berthe Morisot’s approach is similar to that of Degas. The face of the model (above) is very much there, but it is not pulled out of the space in which she sits. It is as though Morisot does not see the head or the dress or the grass as head or dress or grass. Chronological time is suspended. We are one in the same space and time.

These are studies by Morisot. As opposed to a literal treatment of the subject, Morisot seeks instead to open her visual experience, wanting to be possessed by it – the relationship of gesture and scale, the way the light falls on the subjects in that moment, the feeling of air, the energy of color. Morisot is not painting a picture of two people as much as she is rendering her feelings of fullness as a response to visual sensations. The painting is a Morisot.

This young girl is not distant from us today. We can exit through Morisot’s work and straddle two realms. Our “now” melts into the “now” of the young girl drawing.

Even with this traditional pose, we find Morisot locating the two figures inside of tonality of a given space. These studies remind me of Jane Bennett’s characterization of activity that exists apart from and beyond commercial activity. Writes Bennett: “Enchantment is a feeling of being connected in an affirmative way to existence; it is to be under the momentary impression that the natural and cultural worlds offer gifts and, in so doing, remind us that it’s good to be alive.”

Studies, as opposed to portraits, are never under one’s control, never “only or fully the product of will or intention.” Consequently, there is something vibratory, possibly unintended, that keeps on moving forward.

NOTE: The featured image at the top is a head study by Bill Schultz.