The Small Boat 1927

Auguste Herbin made "The Small Boat" with paint, probably oil, and a clear love for geometry, although who knows when. The forms are flattened and simplified, but they also suggest a kind of raw physicality. I am drawn to the way Herbin handles the paint; it is neither thick nor thin, but somehow both. It’s as if he wants us to see the paint as paint, but also as something else, something more. Look at the dark brown U-shape, bisected with a line of white: is it part of the boat, or an abstract shape that stands alone? This ambiguity is what makes the painting so compelling; it invites us to question the way we see the world, to embrace uncertainty and play with form. It reminds me a little of Stuart Davis, who was also playing with a similar sense of flattening space and ambiguous forms. Ultimately, though, the conversation keeps going!