The Seine at Rouen 1901

Camille Pissarro made this painting of the Seine at Rouen with oil on canvas. Imagine him outside, perhaps with an easel, making decisions about what to leave in and what to leave out. The painting is full of thick strokes of yellow and earth tones. The surface is built up, and the colors feel like they’ve been added one on top of the other, shifting, emerging, and making it up as it goes along. I sympathize with the artist, the way that one dab of paint leads to another, that leads to another. Look at that choppy horizon line of green – how it holds the weight of that sky. I’m thinking of him seeing a boat in the water and trying to capture the specific quality of light reflecting on the surface. Each artist takes something from the artist before. We're all looking and learning, trying to translate our experiences into new ways of seeing.