Sketches at GOMA — European Masterpieces

Last week I snuck out to visit GOMA with Shayna, and see the exhibition of European Masterpieces from the Met. They’re renovating, we’re briefly not in lockdown…

I don’t sketch much when I’m visiting galleries with friends — there are important conversations to have, the backgrounds of Renaissance paintings to examine, people with cameras to dodge.

But I did get to do some of my favourite gallery sketching, which is sketching OTHER people sketching.

But I did get in a sketch of one of my favourites — which is MUCH larger than I imagined. I like it because it is so direct and frank, odd in its blank expanses and then unexpectedly detailed, not unlovely but far more concerned with what the sitter is doing. And if you look at it too long, it feels exactly like when a friend is drawing you and staring very hard at you but never quite meeting your eyes because they’re fixated on the shadows of your nose.

Here is the portrait — you can find out more about it on the Met’s page.

Marie Denise Villers — Marie Joséphine Charlotte du Val d’Ognes (1786–1868) 1801