Morning Effect, Banks of the Yonne River 1905

This small painting on canvas by Francis Picabia shimmers with light. The colours are muted, like a landscape seen through mist, but the brushstrokes are alive. You can almost feel the artist capturing a fleeting moment in paint. I imagine Picabia standing on the banks of the Yonne River, squinting to catch the details in the landscape. It’s a world of wet-into-wet paint. Notice how the colour is scrubbed into the canvas, like he's trying to conjure the light, and the way the paint merges. The touch is all-over, dissolving the banks of the river, the sky, and the trees. There's one dark vertical that anchors it, a tree perhaps. I think, as artists, we’re all looking for something in the work of others. We’re not so different from each other, across time, in our intentions to make something meaningful. And we learn from looking, always in conversation with each other. Painting, for me, is a way to embrace the open-endedness of life.