Le Cabanon, Le Lavandou 1929

Lucien Pissarro made "Le Cabanon, Le Lavandou" with oil on canvas using small brushstrokes and a muted palette. It’s like he’s feeling his way through the landscape, one dab of paint at a time. Check out how the texture isn't smoothed over. You can see each touch, building up a surface that’s almost vibrating with light. Look at the way the blues and greens in the trees kind of bleed into the ochre of the earth. And then those flicks of brick red on the roof, holding the whole thing together. It’s as if he’s saying, "Here, look closely, see how everything is connected?" Pissarro reminds me a bit of Cezanne, who also loved to build up forms with small, deliberate marks. But while Cezanne can feel really solid, Pissarro is all about capturing the fleeting moments. Both were more than painters, they were visual philosophers.