Paysage à Moulineux 1903

Maximilien Luce laid down strokes of oil to create this landscape, a dance of color reflecting a commitment to process as much as place. The surface is alive. It’s not about smooth illusionism here. You can almost feel the way Luce loaded his brush, dragged it across the canvas. Notice the way the pink of the road is made up of other colors. You could spend hours just looking at that one little area, and still not get to the bottom of what’s going on, which is something I love. The way those greens of the trees are dashed against the pale sky is like the earth reaching up, maybe like Van Gogh’s cypress trees, but a little more mellow, a little less angsty. It's an ongoing conversation, this painting thing. It leaves space for us to wander, wonder, and ask our own questions.