Portrait of Alice Derain 1921

Andre Derain painted this portrait of Alice Derain using oils, and it’s hanging right here in the Pompidou. What strikes me is how Derain builds form. He models in blocks of color, and you can see how that process shapes the volumes in the picture. Take a look at the dog, and see how Derain is pushing and pulling, and building that beast up out of brown, ochre, and dark grey paint. It almost feels like he’s sculpting with the brush. The paint looks thick here, and you can see how the brushstrokes overlap. This emphasis on the materiality of paint reminds me of the work of Gustave Courbet, who was a pioneer in painting as an earthy, physical process. There’s something satisfying and real about that. In the end, art is always about that exchange between idea and matter. It’s a conversation, and there are no final answers.