The nautical Club with Cowes 1936

Raoul Dufy made this painting of the Nautical Club, with Cowes, using oil on canvas. Look at those greens—almost sickly—playing against reds and flashes of orange. It feels like a dream, or a memory, fading in and out of focus. I can imagine Dufy standing before the canvas, layering colors, adding figures with loose brushstrokes, almost like he was sketching with paint. See how the people and furniture sort of blend together? It’s like he’s not just painting what he sees, but what he feels, like the echo of a conversation in a room. And the way he’s painted those yachts through the window, they're floating in the air. Dufy’s paintings always make me think about the way color can create space and depth, turning a flat surface into a whole world. You know he had something with Matisse and the Fauves, and I can see echoes of that here. It’s all one big conversation, isn’t it?