A day later, I’m still thinking about many of the Boldini pieces from the show at the Petit Palais. Previously unfamiliar with his work, I was surprised by how many different pieces throughout the vast show summarizing his stylistically and numerically extensive career resonated with me, from the technical expertise of his earlier work to the expressivity of his later portraits. My main impression was an extension of earlier themes I thought about after seeing the Monet Rouen Cathedral series at the Musée d’Orsay, mainly the influence of photography within painting. This desire to express cinematic aspects such as the passage of time, transition of colors, or the impression of motion, things that would inevitably be expressed within film, appear prominently within many of Boldini’s works.
Within Boldini’s portraits, the posing, or perhaps anti-posing, in which the subjects stand always capture a spontaneity like that seen within a snapshot, be it through depicting a woman in the process of taking a glove off or a child slouching on a couch. This gives each of the pieces an authenticity that assists in capturing the personality of each subject within the portrait, contributing to the demureness of a woman’s expression or the playful, unpoised nature of a child’s. Additionally, Boldini replicates features quintessential to photography through his imitation of the illusion of motion seen in the garments worn by his subjects. By portraying the blur of motion, Boldini effectively stops time in the instantaneous matter of a snapshot. While including this photographic influence, this blurred effect also recalls impressionism, another contemporary influence, veering into abstraction when depicting the fabric.