Spring 1906

Gustave Loiseau made this painting, Spring, with oil on canvas. The pastel sky of blues, pinks, and yellows is just gorgeous! And those blossom trees with their limbs reaching out, it's like Loiseau was really feeling that springtime energy and putting it all on the canvas! I can almost feel the breeze and smell the flowers, can't you? He’s built up the surface with these tiny strokes of color that give the whole thing a kind of shimmering effect. I can imagine him standing there, squinting in the sunlight, trying to capture the fleeting light and the feeling of renewal. It's a tough job to communicate something so ephemeral. Loiseau was one of the later Impressionists, so he was definitely in conversation with Monet and Pissarro, but he brings his own sensibility to it, a certain earthiness. You can see he’s really thinking about the materiality of paint. It's a reminder that painting is an ongoing conversation, and we're all just adding our voices to the mix.