Molen i Honfleur. 1879 - 1949

Othon Friesz made this little wash drawing of Honfleur probably fairly quickly, using ink, or maybe watercolor, on paper. I can imagine him standing there, squinting, trying to get the essence of the harbor down. There’s a back-and-forth between observation and interpretation here. Friesz simplifies everything to basic shapes – the buildings, the masts of the ships, and the long, dark shadows. It’s interesting to see how he uses the wash to suggest depth and atmosphere, like he is pushing the paint around the surface almost sculpting the image. This piece reminds me a bit of some of the early modernist painters, like Cézanne, who were also trying to capture the underlying structure of the world. Like them, Friesz, I think, is not just recording what he sees, but trying to understand it. The blankness is generative, like how a thought comes into being.