Landscape with Figure (Paysage avec figure)

Discussion

FROM THE BARNES FOUNDATION’S CATALOG

In one of Soutine's more narrative scenes, a figure in brown walks up an impossibly steep slope while others gaze down from above. A vista of hilly farmland convulses across the canvas. According to Dr. Barnes's colleague Violette de Mazia, creative departures from physical reality—such as the figure's sideways gait—"result from the artist's making instrumental use of his subject…for the expression of his experience of some aspect of the world he encounters." Taking in the amalgamated whirl of land, trees, and sky, one wonders how else someone might traverse a landscape of Soutine's?

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