-Tropiques- monumental jar and cover c. 1937

Henri Rapin made this monumental jar, called "Tropiques," sometime in the early twentieth century. The surface is covered in a watery dreamscape rendered in thin washes of green, pink, and blue. You can see the hand of the artist in the way that the forms are softly blurred and blended—the palms, the mountains, and the stylized tropical birds feel close, like they might dissolve into the moist air. I imagine Henri Rapin working on this in his studio, layering and layering the paint, watching the scene emerge. How long did it take him to coax the scene into being? Did he work from life, or was it all from imagination? There is a decorative quality to this jar that reminds me of the work of other painters, like Bonnard and Vuillard, but with a very distinctive vision. You can see here how artists look at and learn from one another, each finding their own path, their own way of expressing the feelings, impressions, and moods of the world around them.