Acacias 1959

André Lhote’s “Acacias” is a riot of greens, yellows, and blues, and the painting feels like a puzzle, each color block vying for attention. I wonder what Lhote was thinking, standing before this scene. Was he trying to capture the light dancing through the leaves, or maybe the way the landscape seemed to shift and shimmer in the heat? You know, painting outside can be a real wrestle! The light changes so fast that you're always trying to catch up. The paint here is applied pretty thickly, giving the surface a real texture. I like how he uses these short, choppy strokes to build up the forms, almost like mosaic tiles. There's one dark purple stroke that suggests a bird in flight, it’s so fleeting and free, amidst all these more stolid shapes! Lhote seemed to be in constant dialogue with his contemporaries, like Braque and Picasso, figuring out how to translate the world into these faceted, geometric forms. It's like they were all in this ongoing conversation about how to see, how to represent what they saw, and how to push the boundaries of painting itself. It’s this exchange that makes painting such a vibrant and evolving practice.