View in the Dart Valley, Devon 1922

Lucien Pissarro made this painting of the Dart Valley in Devon with visible brushstrokes and a palette of muted greens and earthy tones. For Pissarro, painting was a process of feeling and responding to the landscape. Looking closely, you can see how he built up the image with small, deliberate dabs of paint. The texture is rich, almost crumbly in places, giving a real sense of the physical world. The way the light filters through the leaves of the trees, it’s like he’s trying to catch a fleeting moment, a particular quality of light. Notice the way the path winds its way into the distance, drawing you into the scene, inviting you to walk into the painting. You can see the legacy of his father Camille in the way the painting describes the landscape, but he’s doing his own thing, pushing the boundaries of Impressionism in his own way. It reminds me a little of Cezanne, in the way he's building the image out of these little blocks of colour, creating a solid, tangible world. Art's just a long conversation like that, people picking up where others left off, agreeing and disagreeing.