Emile Claus — Girl in a Straw Bonnet Postcard

Her gaze holds the whole composition. A young woman with golden hair and rosy cheeks looks straight out from beneath a pale straw bonnet, set against a rose garden in full bloom — pink roses to the left, white to the right, a gravel path curving away behind her. Emile Claus renders her face with far more finish than the loosely brushed garden around it, a contrast that keeps the eye moving between her sharp, warm expression and the soft dissolve of petals and hedge. The only portrait in this series — for anyone who'd rather send a face than a landscape.