The Avenue 1923

Alice Bailly made The Avenue with oil on canvas, and what strikes me is the combination of geometric shapes and organic forms. It’s as if the city has been softened, made yielding. I imagine her standing there, brush in hand, layering these muted colors, tan, brown, and green, building up the image bit by bit, responding to the emerging composition. There's a flattening of perspective that makes me think of early modernism, that play with spatial depth. I can see her, you know, squinting at the scene before her, trying to capture it, not as it is, but as she feels it. Look at the little figures dotted across the road, like grains of sand. It reminds me that painting is such an embodied expression, a way of thinking through feeling. It’s a dialogue between the artist and the canvas, a conversation that spans across time and influences, from cubism to folk art.