Landscape in Ceret 1913

Curator: The geometric composition of "Landscape in Ceret," painted in 1913 by Auguste Herbin, immediately strikes me. The scene is fragmented into these distinct shapes. Editor: There's a real sense of building and layering in this oil painting, seeing the textured surface created through blocks of colour. It is clearly a painting constructed methodically. The mark-making certainly speaks to the influence of analytical Cubism. Curator: Absolutely. The deconstruction of natural forms into geometric components echoes the broader cubist exploration of breaking down reality into perspectives. These stark geometric lines don't give us a mirror image of nature, rather they attempt to delve deeper into its elemental nature, expressing something perhaps about the very structure of seeing. Editor: I find myself considering the physicality of applying paint to canvas, how Herbin engages with these raw materials. I wonder if there’s an echo of building and craft in the depiction of that structure within the image itself. Look how those rough strokes approximate stone. It also calls to mind artisanal processes. The creation mirrors the subject; labor built this, and it depicts labor’s product. Curator: I see how this depiction uses symbolic geometry, perhaps expressing underlying orders within this seemingly random, natural landscape. What looks arbitrary has these intentional relationships, an order to those building blocks you point out. Even the choice of Ceret is telling – it was a gathering place for avant-garde artists at this time, which became deeply mythologized, even as it served as a source of raw material for Herbin's landscape. Editor: Interesting. The means of production is front and center then, in subject and method. Well, this glimpse into Herbin's artistic rendering and our reflections offer, I hope, an insightful look into this pivotal work. Curator: Yes, this painting opens questions about our comprehension and shaping of landscapes, through symbolism, materials, and cultural lenses.