View over Grimand 1920

Henri Manguin made this painting, View over Grimand, and it’s full of breezy brushstrokes in greens, blues and oranges. I can almost feel him dabbing at the canvas, trying to pin down that fleeting moment of light and color. Imagine him standing there, squinting at the scene, trying to capture the way the sunlight filters through the trees, and the way the water shimmers in the distance. Look how thinly the paint is spread, but it still manages to convey so much information! It’s like he’s using color to build the image from the ground up. The way he’s painted those trees, so loose and free, reminds me of Cézanne, but with a warmer, more playful touch. Manguin was part of that Fauvist crowd, wasn’t he? You can sense that impulse to push color to its limits. Painting is such an exchange. We make our own thing, but we are inspired by others. It’s like an ongoing conversation. Ultimately this painting feels like a love letter to the joys of seeing and being in the world.