Drink to the Chimera 1947

Jacques Villon made *Drink to the Chimera* with oil on canvas. I love that the painting is all about process and how these triangles come together, the artist allows you to see the skeleton of the thing, the decisions that led to its making. There's something poetic about the textured surface; you can feel the physicality of the paint, thick in some spots, thin in others. Look at the ghostly grey triangles at the bottom, they almost float, like memories. You can see the brushstrokes, the artist’s hand, in the way the pigment sits on the canvas. It's like he's saying, "Here's how I made it, but it’s up to you to make sense of it." Villon was part of the cubist gang, like Picasso and Braque. But Villon always had his own thing going on. This piece, with its soft colours and geometric shapes, makes me think of Sonia Delaunay. It’s a reminder that art is always a conversation, an ongoing exploration of ideas.