Twee vrouwenfiguren met vogels en een hond 1921

This artwork by Jules Germain features two women figures with birds and a dog. I wonder if the artist worked on it over a long period, layering the thin washes of color, letting the image emerge slowly. I can imagine Jules Germain puzzling over the figures and animals, trying to give the scene some narrative force with the smallest of means. This piece is all about texture and the subtle shifts in hue, the gray-blue in the background, a sort of melancholic veil. I am touched by the simplicity of the composition. The dog, reduced to a kind of graphic sign, and the other creatures offer a sense of playful uncertainty to the scene. This reminds me a little of Picasso and other early modernists. They were all in conversation, riffing on the same themes and formal ideas. It is this exchange, this visual thinking, that makes painting so interesting. It opens itself up to multiple possibilities.