Paysage 1904

Jean Metzinger made this painting of a landscape with oil on canvas. Look closely, and you'll see it's made up of thousands of tiny dots of color. It's almost dizzying, isn't it? Like he was trying to capture not just the scene, but the very act of seeing itself. I'm drawn to how Metzinger uses color to build form. The way he layers blues and purples to create depth in the water, then juxtaposes that with the warm yellows and oranges of the shoreline. There’s a tree right in the middle, look at the shadow on it, how it’s made up of lilacs and light greens, the shade of spring. It reminds me of Seurat, but with a bit more energy, a bit more fizz. Like Metzinger couldn't quite contain himself within the rigid structure of pointillism. There's a looseness here, a sense of play that I really dig. It’s like he's saying, "Yeah, I can do the dots, but I'm gonna do 'em my way." Art's all about finding your own way, right?