Searching through art archives every week, I sometimes come across portraits of people who look as if I’ve just interrupted them, with unamused expressions that say, “What. Hurry up and tell me why you’ve interrupted me so that I can go back to what I was doing.”

Here are three such people. They’re looking at you, waiting for your answer. What are you going to tell them?

James Jacques Joseph Tissot, Self-Portrait, c. 1898. Gouache on silk. Private collection.

Sir George Clausen, The Girl at the Gate, 1889. Oil on canvas. Tate collection, London.

André Derain, Portrait of a Man with a Newspaper (Chevalier X), 1911-1914. Oil on canvas. State Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg, Russia.

P.S. Open Mic is this week! Submit your work-in-progress today and tomorrow, and on Wednesday all of the submissions will go live for 24 hours of feedback from your fellow writers!