The Sandpit, Coldharbour 1916

Lucien Pissarro made this painting, The Sandpit, Coldharbour, with oil paint, and, looking at it, I imagine, a brush, maybe several! The colours are so earthy – ochres, browns, greens. The marks create a kind of gentle vibration. It’s like Pissarro built the landscape dot by dot, a real process of layering and accumulation. Zooming in, there's this one dark, almost black, mark near the bottom left, kind of dragged across the surface, it anchors the whole composition. It’s a counterpoint to all the lighter, more diffuse touches of colour. It’s really satisfying to see how he’s pushed and pulled the paint around to create a sense of depth and texture. You can almost feel the grit and roughness of the sandpit. The subtle colour modulations remind me of Corot, in the way they find an emotional quality in the landscape, but Pissarro’s touch is more direct. Art's an ongoing conversation, right? There's no one way of seeing.