The English yacht 1906

Raoul Dufy made this painting of an English yacht with oils, and you can see the artist feeling his way through the scene with every dab of the brush. Looking at the flags, and the way they're dashed off in thick daubs of color, I can almost feel Dufy working quickly, trying to capture the scene before the light changes, or the boat sails away. It's like he's in conversation with Matisse, maybe Vlaminck, figuring out how to translate the world into feeling, into color and texture. The buildings in the background are a bit wobbly, but I love how they contrast with the solidity of the yacht. It's like he's saying, "Hey, I'm not trying to make a perfect picture here, I'm just trying to capture a moment." And that moment, with its blurry edges and imperfect details, is so much more interesting than any perfectly rendered photograph could ever be. Dufy's piece feels like a shared experience, a visual poem, that connects us to the artist's process and his love of life.