By the Lorne River near Caen 1925

Gustave Loiseau made this painting of the Lorne River near Caen using small brushstrokes of predominantly blues, greens, and ochres. Just imagine him there, trying to wrangle all that light bouncing off the water and trees! I can almost feel the sun on my face as he builds up these layers, dabbing and daubing. There’s a real push and pull of color and texture, here. Look at the way he renders the water, it feels almost like a curtain of shimmering marks. And then those logs in the foreground, grounding us, like a full stop on a sentence. You can see hints of Impressionism here, but with his own kind of structural twist. Loiseau, like many artists, stands on the shoulders of giants, taking cues from those who came before, while carving out his own little patch of the world. For me, painting is less about answers and more about questions, about allowing space for ambiguity, and trusting in the messy process of discovery.