Last Friday, my husband and I went to this show of early fauve works at the MET. I totally resonate with these paintings. Their color vibrations, the mark making, and the pointillism, the verve, the simplicity, the strength are all exciting to me.

I love how they are underworked, and I could sometimes benefit from emulating that, as especially when painting in plein air, I hope to “stop” sooner, and be more willing to let my ground show through, without worrying that they’ll read as unfinished.

I also love their portraits of one another, particularly Derain’s portrait of Matisse.

You can see me posing with that painting below I was most jazzed about, and you can see a short video I took of it by clicking here.

Enjoy the show below. You can also watch a walk through by the curators here.  They said in summary, “It was really thanks to them that modern artists could use color as the wished.” Yes, thank you for to Matisse and Derain for stepping out in courage, to express color as they experienced it.