La plage rouge 1901

"La plage rouge" by Maurice Denis is an oil painting of a beach with bold strokes of orange and blue, punctuated with bits of green and grey. I imagine Maurice standing before his canvas, squinting at the scene, trying to capture not just the look of the beach, but its feel. Look at the texture – the thick, almost clumsy dabs of paint that make up the rocks in the foreground. You can almost feel the rough, barnacle-covered surfaces. The beach itself is a warm expanse of orange, inviting and unreal. What was he thinking, turning the sand red? Maybe he was just feeling the heat, or maybe he wanted to push back against the traditional way of seeing things. The way he’s built up the clouds, layer upon layer, reminds me of Cézanne, but with a touch of something else, a certain dreaminess. It makes me wonder about the conversations painters have across time, how they challenge and inspire each other, even when they're long gone. It’s about the ongoing, messy, beautiful experiment of trying to make sense of the world through paint, isn’t it?