Nature morte sur une table 1911 - 1912

Georges Valmier made this still life on a table with oil paint. The colours are muted, but there's something about the way he's approached the forms that makes the painting buzz. Valmier applied the paint in small, deliberate strokes, building up the image piece by piece. I get the feeling that he thought about painting like building something from scratch. Look at the way he's rendered the shadows. They are not just dark patches but have a form of their own, and that interplay of light and dark gives the painting a real depth. It reminds me of the way Cézanne would construct his landscapes, but with a touch of something else entirely, like maybe he spent time looking at Mondrian's work too. It’s like Valmier is having a conversation with art history, but in his own unique language. It's this kind of dialogue that keeps art alive.