Street at Corté, Corsica 1913

Maurice Utrillo made "Street at Corté, Corsica" with oil on canvas. The palette is restrained, almost bleached, and he uses a very direct, uncomplicated approach to mark-making. You can really see the process here. The surface has a scrubbed quality. The paint isn’t applied to trick you into thinking you’re seeing a photorealistic view of buildings. Instead, it feels like he’s trying to capture the essence of a place with a limited range of colours. Look at the way he renders the sky. It's just a few strokes of grayish-white, but it totally works! The buildings are solid blocks of off-white, punctuated with those pale green shutters. And the road? It’s a smear of ochre and tan that somehow suggests the dusty streets of Corsica. Utrillo’s work reminds me a bit of Giorgio Morandi, in that both artists found endless fascination in simple subjects. It's a reminder that art isn't always about grand gestures. Sometimes, it's about finding beauty in the everyday.