Landscape, Provence 1925

Andre Derain made this landscape painting of Provence, France, with visible brushstrokes of ochre, green, and blue. I imagine Derain standing before the scene, squinting in the bright Provencal sun. I feel like he mixes the colors right on the canvas, wet into wet, trying to capture the light and the heat radiating from the ground. What I love most about the painting is the physicality of the paint itself—it looks thick, juicy almost. The broad strokes of color create texture on the surface, giving a sense of the landscape's ruggedness. The way the brushstrokes follow the contours of the land, building up the forms with layers of paint, reminds me of Cezanne. You see how Derain is looking at his predecessor, but he's also doing his own thing, pushing the color and the form in new directions. It’s as though painters are constantly responding to and building upon each other's ideas, in a visual conversation that stretches across time. Painting becomes a space of experimentation, where the act of seeing, feeling, and thinking merge into something new.