Nuit II (Composition with Frog) 

Curator: We're looking at *Nuit II (Composition with Frog)*. The artist is Louis Marcoussis, a painter known for his involvement with Cubism and Modernism. Editor: My initial reaction is that it feels like a dreamscape rendered in bold geometry. The colors are vibrant against the deep blacks. It feels…unsettling but visually interesting. Curator: That unsettling quality is characteristic of the Synthetic Cubist vocabulary Marcoussis employs. The painting presents fragmented forms in flattened space, pushing back against representational depth. The oil paint provides a richness that's very important here, it's a strong counterpoint to what could otherwise be purely graphic. Editor: And the frog itself! Tucked into the corner – seemingly unimportant at first, but the work is, after all, named after it. In a more process-oriented interpretation, the presence of this seemingly “small” figure actually offers such scale and importance to the other large forms, making them take over the entire frame in turn. Also the "night" of the title becomes more grounded via its relationship to amphibian activity in the context of actual earthly spaces and forms... Curator: The juxtaposition of the title "Nuit", night, and this geometric approach speaks volumes, it sets an atmospheric expectation in stark conflict with the language of abstract painting. I'm intrigued by how the sharp angles balance the curvilinear shapes, too. This tension between opposing elements gives it such visual energy, and it draws me into the formal relationships present, not unlike tenets of structuralism. Editor: Exactly. These opposing angles also create the tensions to really work with what the "medium" as such gives, namely it shows just how flat paint on canvas can invoke form despite itself! Like, it has some inherent properties. And because paint is itself material that had to be developed and extracted and purchased and transported... all the more amazing really! Curator: A stimulating proposition! It certainly asks the viewer to reconstruct reality through a purely visual vocabulary. Editor: Absolutely, this has broadened my perspective of what cubism has to offer beyond purely compositional innovation and towards, really, just our interactions with materials writ large. Curator: Yes, thinking about this makes the practice of painting as a visual mode all the richer for me, too!