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Updated: Jun 21, 2022


Mountains at Collioure

1905

Andre Derain


Derain's paintings are designed to make an impact. His generation of painters had grown frustrated by the legacy of the Impressionist and wanted to put the painter back into painting (as they saw it). If the Impressionist had said through their work "This is what the eye really sees", Derain and his peers said, "This is what we as artists see".​

Their focus was colour.


They never abandoned representation completely - you can easily see that this painting depicts olive trees with mountains in the background - but the star of the show is colour.​

Here he has set about showing the blues and greens and yellow of olive leaves, the purple of mountains. Even if this kind of scenery isn't our favourite, we can still see how vibrant he has made it. And if we have ever had the chance to be in Languedoc, we know that he got those colours just right.​

I find this painting beautiful.​

Their earliest critics didn't agree. (In)famously, one critic described these artists as fauves (wild animals) and the name fauvistes stuck.​

Perhaps it shows that if we hang on to our assumptions and prejudices, we will struggle to see beauty.

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Red Poppy IV

Georgia O'Keeffe


I love Georgia O'Keeffe's work.

Sure, you would have needed to have undergone reconfiguring of the more primitive parts of your brain not to see something profoundly fleshly and sensual in a lot of it ... But it's also beautiful art.


O'Keeffe delights in bringing detail to our attention, not in some pedantic way but in a manner which rejoices in it. Much of her work could be pin-ups for botanists. She also creates a glossiness of the colouring which conveys both an artificial and a hyper-real texture. She brings us the PVC niche interest of the botanical world.


Sexy and sensual, playful and pretty, this is fine art to enjoy.



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The Striped Blouse

1895

Eduoard Vuillard


This is the kind of painting which triggers so many reactions, you need to let them calm down before you can reflect on how beautiful it is.


A little background to satisfy some of those initial responses. This is part of a set Vuillard painted for Misia Godebska and her husband Thadee Nathanson. Critics identify the woman in the foreground as Misia herself, a prominent musician in her day. At about this time, Vuillard was forming the Nabis art group with Pierre Bonnard, dedicated to bringing expression and symbolism into modern painting. The subject is two women arranging flowers.


You could describe this as a riot of colour and pattern: Vuillard's Nabis group would later inspire the Fauvists (Wild Animals). The dominant colours and yellows (including skin tones) and browns, punctuated and highlighted with blue and white. I find the whole effect uplifting. I would joyfully have this on one of my (probably, magnolia) walls.


One more thought - and I have to confess that I have yet to be able to see this in paintings - some critics have described Vuillard's work as synesthetic - it initially calls into play one sense (sight) and evokes another(in this case, hearing). They see his work as being musical. They even suggest that it is created to reflect the music which Misia played. Over to you with that one.


This is a delightful painting which gladdened my day.


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