One of the most inspiring, provoking, and memorable picture sin the entire Museum of Fine Arts in Houston was a painting from 1906 by Andre Derain titled “The Turning Road” (L’Estaque in French). The size is rather large measuring at four and half feet in width and six feet four and a half inches in length. The medium used is oil on canvas. The painting is a great example of fauvism, of which Derain was one of the founders together with Henri Matisse. Fauvism can be described as the fusion of Seurat’s pointillism and Van Gogh’s Post-Impressionism. Otherwise, the movement often features bright colours as well as the tendency to abstract and simplify.
The painting in question is dominated by warm colours including red, orange and yellow. The artist includes cool colours, it seems, purely to create beautiful contrast between red-orange and blue-green. The lines in the painting are mostly thick and very well defined. Only the leaves on the trees do not feature clearly established lines. Everything is mostly curved. several manmade objects in the ground are straight, but all of the trees bend in different directions and the same goes for human beings in the foreground. Very few elements have sharp angles. There is no light in the usual sense as the painting is very much far from realism. The lack of real lighting makes the painting rather two-dimensional despite the fact that further objects are smaller. Nonetheless, the acid brightness of all colours ensures the surreal feeling. The textures are dense. There is not a single spot on the entire canvas that is not covered with a thick layer of paint. There is no discernible pattern. Everything is pretty much chaotic. There is no symmetry, and there is not structure. As far as motion is concerned, everything seems static. Humans carrying something in the foreground are in movement but since fauvism leans toward abstraction further from reality, it is difficult to feel any movement. Perhaps, it is best delivered by the pulsing colours particularly in the spots where warm and cool ones meet and mix.
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"Artwork Analysis".
Contrast is the central element to the painting, which makes it unique and memorable. Remarkably enough, the artist depicted the world as seen through infra-red lens when the warmth of colour signifies the temperature of the object. There is no balance neither in terms of the placement of objects nor in the colours. The focal point is the tree which roughly divides the painting into two parts. The tree itself is half dark blue and half red. The proportions are non-existent, and this reality (rather lack thereof) is not detrimental to the quality of the painting. The rhythm is fulfilled with the numerous tress in the background thus giving the entire painting the sense of fast pace. The variety is immense as the artist did not feat to experiment with different hues and shapes. There is remarkable amount of elements.
The strength of the painting is, doubtlessly, in the delivery of colours and the ways they mesh together. The artist implements strong contrasts and interesting mixtures thus presenting a true feast for the eyes. Realistic vision has no significance in this case whatsoever. The artist was clearly interested in depicting an unusual vision which has no place in the realm of reality, and he succeeded. The result is a strange world that relies on the power of contrast and on immense brightness that simply arrests and attracts the gaze of any viewer.
