Anglers 1908

Raoul Dufy's "Anglers" is a painting, whereabouts unknown, that sings with a casual, confident joy. The whole thing is slathered in a delicious, almost edible looking paint, with these thin, scratchy lines that suggest movement and light. Check out the way the boats are just sort of implied with a few swift strokes. It's like Dufy is saying, "Here's the essence of a boat, the feeling of being near the sea." The color palette is so cheerful—that ochre foreground, the light blue of the sea, the dark browns of the figures— it's a reminder that artmaking can be about capturing a mood more than a scene. You can see Dufy's Fauvist roots here, particularly in the way the colors vibrate against each other. It makes me think of Matisse, another master of capturing the simple pleasures of life through color and form. It's all about finding that balance between representation and pure, expressive mark-making.