An Especially Wild Boldini

Giovanni Boldini (1842-1931) was a representational painter, yet he painted so freely that many of his images are exaggerated, if not flat-out distorted. His Wikipedia entry is here and includes a number of examples of his work. I have posted about him as well.

San Francisco's Legion of Honor has Café Scene (c.1887) a small sketch-painting made in Paris. It interests me because, like many unfinished paintings, it offers some insight into how an artist goes about working.

In Boldini's case, it is sketchy indeed.

The painting: a cropped photo I took at the Legion of Honor. What was cropped was the frame plus a tiny bit of the painting.

Detail.