Montparnasse 1907

Maurice Prendergast made "Montparnasse" with watercolor to depict a busy Parisian street. It's a feast of colour! I love how Prendergast uses these small, almost mosaic-like strokes to build up the image. The buildings aren't solid, but shimmering with greens and yellows. And the people! They're just dabs of paint, but you feel the hustle and bustle. Look at the lower part of the painting, see how the blues and reds of the horse-drawn carts are rendered with loose brushstrokes. The colour is transparent in places, allowing the underpainting to peek through, adding to the sense of immediacy. It is all surface, and yet it’s a deep feeling of movement and energy. There's something about the energy in Prendergast’s work that makes me think of Bonnard, that love of everyday life. Art is this constant conversation between artists, a way of seeing and feeling that gets passed down and transformed. It is really about embracing the messy, the unresolved.