The Eure in the Twilight Sun 1901

Francis Picabia made this oil painting, "The Eure in the Twilight Sun," at an unknown date. I really get a sense of Picabia working through something in this piece, figuring out how to make a mark and then another and another. There's so much texture in those tiny, individual brushstrokes of greens, yellows, and blues, almost like he’s knitting the whole scene together. If you look closely at the tree on the right, you can see how he builds the leaves with dabs of paint, creating a sense of light filtering through the canopy. It’s like each leaf is a tiny experiment. You can see how the water is made up of longer, horizontal strokes of the brush, capturing the movement of the river. The way Picabia approaches color reminds me of Monet, maybe even Pissarro. Both artists, in their own way, explored the boundaries of representation, pushing toward abstraction through the sheer act of painting. It’s about seeing, feeling, and then translating that onto canvas with an openness to whatever happens.