On the beach, Dinard 1928

Picasso made ‘On the beach, Dinard’ with oil on wood panel, and looking at it, I get such a sense of playful immediacy. It’s like he’s not trying to capture a scene perfectly, but more like he’s wrestling with the paint to get at the feeling of being there. The way Picasso uses color in this piece is just so bold, right? The paint is applied pretty thickly, and you can almost feel the energy of his brushstrokes. Take a look at the figures—they're so abstracted, but you can still sense the human form. The way he uses these little daubs of orange and brown to suggest the texture of the sand, they almost feel like musical notes, creating a rhythm across the surface. For me, this piece feels like a cousin to Matisse’s work. Both were clearly obsessed with how shape and color can create an emotional experience. And like all great art, it feels like a conversation, an ongoing exploration of what it means to see and feel the world.