The Camargue 1956

Andre Masson made this dreamy landscape, The Camargue, with printmaking ink on paper, though I don’t know exactly when. There's a kind of all-overness to the mark-making. The forms of the landscape seem to emerge from this pattern. It reminds me of the way Agnes Martin used the grid to evoke landscape. The texture is key here. It’s not about depth or perspective, but the feeling of the surface. Look closely, and you see how the mark-making creates a sense of volume and light. Notice how Masson uses these repetitive, almost hypnotic marks to create a field of vision that is both abstract and representational. I think this is one of the beautiful things about printmaking: its ability to create textures and patterns that feel handmade, yet have this mechanical quality. I can’t help but think of Joan Miró and the way he used biomorphic forms to create his own kind of dreamscapes. Like Miró, Masson seems to be tapping into something primal and intuitive.