Landscape from Arges Valley 1971

Henri Catargi’s ‘Landscape from Arges Valley’ is a painting where the brushwork is really working. He’s not trying to trick you into thinking this is a real place but he’s certainly inviting you in. The colors are muted, like the end of a long summer, with strokes of browns, greens and yellows all mixed up. It’s not photoreal, thank goodness, but there’s a real sense of being there, in that valley. I love how he’s handled the texture of the land – it’s bumpy and uneven, like real earth. Look at how the paint is applied – thick in some places, thin in others, creating a surface that's alive. Notice the way he’s rendered the fence, as a series of vertical marks which lean against each other, this simple passage really makes the painting sing. It reminds me a little of some of the landscapes by Bomberg, in the way that the paint creates the space. Ultimately, this piece celebrates the fact that art is a conversation, an ongoing process of seeing and responding, without needing to have all the answers.