Paysage à Méréville 1904

This is a painting of a landscape at Méréville by Maximilien Luce, but to me it feels like a painting of paint itself. Look closely and you’ll see how Luce isn’t trying to trick us into believing we’re looking at a real place; instead, he’s showing us how he builds an image with strokes and dabs of colour. There’s a real joy in the materiality here – in the way the paint sits on the surface, thick and juicy. The way he applies the paint reminds me of Seurat, but with more expressive brushwork. In the top left corner, see those clouds? The pinks and purples aren’t blended, they’re just laid next to each other, letting our eyes do the mixing. It’s a dance between representation and abstraction, and it’s this tension that makes the painting so alive. I see echoes of Pissarro here, but Luce brings a certain raw energy that’s all his own. It’s a reminder that art is always a conversation, artists building on what came before, pushing in new directions.