The entrance to Cassis, also called The belfry at Cassis 1909

Othon Friesz made this painting called 'The Entrance to Cassis' with oils and brushstrokes that feel both deliberate and spontaneous. I can imagine him working on it, trying to capture the light and atmosphere of the place. There’s a lot of grey here. Look closely, and you’ll see how the tones shift from dark to light, creating depth and texture. Notice the stark geometry of those towers against the hazy, undefined forms of the landscape behind. These dark looming shapes make the painting, yet the texture looks thin. I wonder if Friesz was thinking about Cezanne when he made this. Both artists were interested in how we see and how we can represent the world in paint. Friesz is part of a long conversation that includes not only Cezanne but so many other painters who grappled with similar problems of light, space, and form. It's through this embodied and on-going conversation that we can appreciate painting’s ambiguous and uncertain means of expression.