Partly Draped Model

Robert Henri was the anti-academic academic. He first rejected classical Realism in favor of Impressionism; finding that equally stultifying, he tried to break down all barriers to creativity. He encouraged his students to seek out new subjects and to paint as they saw fit. For this study of a model, he chose to work on sandpaper, a surface commonly associated with laborious amateur copies of prints. Henri’s work is of wholly different character. For him the abrasive surface picked up ample quantities of dense color applied with exceptional freedom. He drew contour guidelines but did not stick to them. His feverish stokes included zigzags, smears, jabs, and blotches; yet, from this chaos emerges the form of a voluptuous woman.