Valley of the Lot at Vers 1912

Andre Derain created this landscape painting with oil on canvas. You can see the layers of color, like he was building up the image, bit by bit. He probably stood in front of his canvas and moved the paint around intuitively to find the forms and shapes. Looking at it makes me think about the challenges all painters face. I can imagine Derain walking through that valley and being totally struck by the way the light hit the rocks. So he probably tried to capture that fleeting moment, but it was also about the paint itself, and how it could mimic the feeling of being in that place. The earthy palette resonates with artists of his time and before, like Cézanne. Painters are constantly looking at each other's work, riffing off each other's ideas, and passing the torch from one generation to the next. It's an ongoing conversation.