Hillside Village 1913

Maurice Prendergast made this watercolour painting, ‘Hillside Village,’ sometime in his lifetime. I can imagine Prendergast delicately layering the paper with strokes of translucent colour. Look how he’s built up the forms with these lively touches, the watery pigment pooling and mingling, creating a tapestry of light and shadow. It’s a dance of hues – the earthy oranges and reds of the trees against the cool blues and greens of the landscape. I bet he was really in the moment, trying to let the water move freely across the page, allowing for those unexpected blooms and bleeds to happen. For me, the best part is how he suggests the texture of the foliage. It's not precise, but conveys the feeling of a lush, vibrant scene, maybe something that Cézanne or Bonnard might have dreamt up. Artists like Prendergast were having a really intense and beautiful conversation. Each artist adds their own mark to this ongoing dialogue. It’s a legacy of mark-making and imagination.