“It takes effort to remember that the figures and outfits in the paintings were just what was around at the time, not some remembered or imagined history. The frocks and suits were the equivalent of today’s cardigans and crop tops and baggy jeans and chore coats. (There’s a genre of 21st-century painting that I’ve taken to thinking of as Brooklyn Impressionism, IYKYK.) In the paintings, these are people just walking around in the park upon an afternoon, taking their dogs out, drinking glasses of wine. (I would love to see an Impressionism show focused solely on meals and tables.) The normalcy was radical, the banality was modern”
https://onethingnewsletter.substack.com/p/paintings-of-your-friends-and-nice