The Friar c. 1930

Georges Rouault made this painting, The Friar, with oil on canvas, and it’s just popping with dark outlines and muted tones. I can feel the artist building up those layers, like the painting came into being slowly, with a lot of trial, error, and intuition. I feel for Rouault, standing in front of the canvas, wrestling with the image, searching for the right mark. Look at the surface – thick, textured, almost crusty, with that light green meeting with a burnt orange. Every dab of paint is a decision, a feeling made visible. What a mood, right? The black lines feel like the lead lines in stained glass, enclosing and forming the figure. The Friar’s figure is constructed through colour blocking, and what I would describe as architectural brushstrokes. Rouault, like other painters, builds on the ideas of the artists that came before. Painting is a constant exchange of ideas, where we inspire each other across time. Ultimately painting is about an expression of feeling and it embraces ambiguity, with endless opportunities for interpretation.