L'Eau Verte 1962

Maurice Esteve made this watercolour, L’Eau Verte, sometime in the 20th century, and just look at that process! The colours feel like they’re bleeding into one another, creating these unexpected shapes and edges. There's a playfulness to the watery consistency of the paint, the way it pools and runs, which feels totally intuitive. I’m drawn to the big blue shape in the lower left. It's got this kind of gravity, but it's also transparent, light can pass through. The whole painting feels like that, a balancing act between solidity and ethereality. The way he lets the colours mix on the page is so direct, so present. It reminds me of Helen Frankenthaler’s soak-stain paintings, but with a touch more… what, whimsy? Ultimately, Esteve's L’Eau Verte reminds us that painting is not just about representation, but about the act of seeing, feeling, and making. It’s an invitation to embrace the unpredictable, the ambiguous, and the unresolved.