Denise Maréchal

Denise Maréchal, painted in 1894 on a small panel and now held in the National Gallery of Art in Washington, is one of the more intimate works in Van Rysselberghe's output — a child portrait executed with the full Neo-Impressionist divisionist vocabulary at a moment when that technique was still novel and avant-garde. By 1894 Van Rysselberghe was at the peak of his orthodox pointillist period, and applying this rigorous method to a child's face posed real challenges: the soft, mobile features of children demand a degree of tonal subtlety that could easily be lost in a mechanical dot pattern. The painting's presence in the National Gallery of Art demonstrates the high institutional regard in which Van Rysselberghe's work was held by the mid-twentieth century, when major American museums were actively building European Post-Impressionist collections.

Oil on panel using Van Rysselberghe's divisionist method applied with particular delicacy to a child's soft features. The small panel support encourages fine, precise touch-work throughout. Flesh tones on the face are built from warm pinks and subtle cool notes that model the rounded forms of a child's face without over-hardening them. The hair and any surrounding elements provide complementary colour contrasts that illuminate the face.