Bord de mer aux pins before 1907

Henri Martin made 'Bord de mer aux pins' with oil paint, and you can really tell. The surface is a riot of little dashes, a mosaic of colour. It's like Martin took the Impressionist thing, you know, that optical mixing, and pumped it up a notch. The paint is thick, juicy even, each stroke sitting proudly on the canvas. Look at the way he renders the sand, not as a flat plane, but as a series of textured ridges, alive with reflected light. My eye keeps going to those trees. They're not just standing there; they're dancing, bending, almost vibrating with energy. The light flickers across their trunks, highlighting the roughness of the bark. There’s something kind of Cézanne about the way Martin builds up form with colour, but with a touch more… I don’t know, maybe tenderness? This piece reminds me of Van Gogh, that same love of the material, that willingness to let the paint speak for itself. But, of course, it's all Martin, creating his own kind of visual poetry.