Landscape 1904

Jean Metzinger made this oil painting, called Landscape, with soft brushstrokes, and it's got a muted but cheerful kind of colour vibe. You can almost feel the artist figuring it out as he goes, shifting things, maybe even painting over parts, trusting intuition. I love the tree on the left; it's not just green. It’s got these pinks and yellows that make it almost alive, sparkling! What was Metzinger thinking, feeling? I imagine he might have been trying to create a feeling, not just a picture. I can feel echoes of Cézanne in the handling of forms and planes, but Metzinger brings this lovely, almost Fauvist energy. Each dab of paint feels like a little decision, a little feeling made visible. It's so intimate, the touch of the artist, and makes me think about how we're all just trying to figure things out as we go, using whatever tools we have. Painting is like that - it's a conversation across time, full of ambiguity and endless possibilities.