Landhuizen aan de voet van de bergen, hooggebergte in het verschiet, La Turbie 1875

Editor: So here we have Jules Ferdinand Jacquemart’s "Landhuizen aan de voet van de bergen, hooggebergte in het verschiet, La Turbie," painted around 1875, a watercolor and mixed medium piece. It strikes me as so delicate and airy, a fleeting impression of a landscape. What do you see in this piece? Curator: Well, I see a memory clinging to paper, don't you? The houses huddle together, but the mountains—oh, the mountains! They loom, ghostly almost. It’s as if Jacquemart caught a moment where reality flickered and something…older, perhaps, pushed through. Do you get a sense of that, that little tug between the domestic and the wild? Editor: I do. The mountains feel almost like a dream compared to the more defined houses. Is that what you mean by "older"? Curator: Precisely! And it’s done *en plein air*, can you imagine lugging all your equipment up there, trying to catch the light before it disappears behind those majestic peaks? There’s such an ephemeral quality to watercolour, so immediate. You have to think, react, paint almost faster than the scene changes. He’s made such deft use of colour to pull you right into the South of France. Editor: It does make me want to pack my bags. So you see it as almost a race against time, capturing a disappearing moment. That's fascinating. I'd never really thought of landscape painting that way before. Curator: Absolutely! Think of the Impressionists, but with a touch of melancholic yearning, as if the present were never quite enough. Tell me, doesn't it make you want to know *what* Jacquemart was yearning for when he paused to create this beauty? Editor: It really does. It’s like a captured breath, waiting to be exhaled. Curator: Precisely! Thanks for making me think.