La Fenêtre De La Cuisine Sur Le Jardin À Marquayrol c. 1916

Henri Martin painted this image of a kitchen window onto a garden at Marquayrol at some point in his life using oil on canvas. It’s like a dance of tiny brushstrokes, a mosaic of color that reminds me of making small marks to figure out the whole. The surface is alive, almost vibrating. He's not trying to hide the way the paint sits on the canvas, it's thick and juicy in some spots, thin and transparent in others. The way he builds up the garden with all those individual dabs of paint is like an exercise in pure seeing. The way he renders the white flowers in the foreground is beautiful, like each little blossom is a tiny explosion of light. Martin reminds me of other painters who were also obsessed with light and color, like Monet or Pissarro, but he has his own particular vision. It’s a reminder that art is a conversation across time.