Chestnut Trees in Bloom c. 1905 - 1906

Maurice de Vlaminck painted this canvas of Chestnut Trees using big, confident strokes, like he’s wrestling the landscape into existence. The palette is all punchy Fauvist colors – reds, yellows, and greens thrown together with a kind of joyful abandon. Up close, you can practically feel the texture; it’s thick, juicy paint, applied with real physical force. See how the red of the house in the background almost vibrates against the greens? It’s like he’s not just painting what he sees, but how he feels. The brushstrokes are these little jabs and dashes, building up to a frenzy of color and movement. Vlaminck and Derain were buddies and painted together a lot, and you can feel that energy here, a kind of shared language of expressive mark-making. It’s all about the here and now, the pure sensation of being in a place, rather than some perfect, idealized version of it. This is painting that’s alive and kicking.