![Harold Gilman - Interior (Mrs Mounter) [1917]](http://c5.staticflickr.com/1/521/30683915644_5151e9a21d_b.jpg)
At first glance this jewel of a painting, an essay in stillness and quietude, may not seem a revolutionary work of art. But radical it is, both in its use of colour as the main driver of narrative and through its subject: the drab and the everyday, with a char-lady as sitter. This is a painting for the modern world, made as the old order was being torn apart by the unprecedented horror of the First World War.
[Sotheby’s, London - Oil on canvas, 38 x 33 cm]