Vallauris 1927 - 1928

Curator: Well, this watercolor by Raoul Dufy, titled "Vallauris," painted between 1927 and 1928, hits me with such breezy, lighthearted energy. I mean, look at the way he’s captured that Provençal light! Editor: My first thought looking at this landscape, "Vallauris," is its clear demonstration of a post-WWI European recuperation fantasy. Note the utopian longing for pastoral simplicity and the depoliticized celebration of the rural sphere as the natural locus of cultural life. Curator: Recuperation, that's one way to put it! For me, it's just such a joyful scene. The way he layers the watercolor, it almost dances. The orange roofs of the buildings nestled into the rolling hills... it feels like pure pleasure on paper. Editor: Perhaps. However, consider the politics of pleasure itself. By depoliticizing a region – in this case, the South of France – Dufy is reproducing a colonial vision, one which idealizes the location through what we might consider an exploitative perspective. How are its residents implicated or considered in this depiction? Curator: Hmm, I see what you mean, but doesn't the lighthearted style sort of democratize the scene? I feel like it reflects a vision for shared leisure and accessibility, you know, a space where everyone is invited. Editor: I would offer an alternative reading, specifically through the theoretical lens of critical race studies. How can this lightheartedness signal privilege by refusing to acknowledge racial inequalities? Curator: Alright, alright. It seems my impression of leisure may have missed the point. Maybe the painting, for all its charm, benefits from and perpetuates certain inequalities. So much for just pure color! Editor: These tensions make "Vallauris" far from straightforward! By holding both perspectives in our awareness – the joyful and the critical – we may gain deeper insights into the painting, its social context, and also ourselves. Curator: Precisely. Maybe, after all, this art helps me confront a part of myself, to recognize what may have gone unnoticed and yet demands consideration. Editor: Indeed, which should now inform how we might both encounter and consider the work henceforth.