The Yellow Path

Here's my quick drawn note of Paul Sérusier's painting "Le chemin jaune, Châteauneuf-du-Faou" for my blip today.

A colleague from my art class was looking for examples of artists who paint landscapes with more of a patchwork of shapes as opposed to a sense of depth. She gave the German artist Paula Modersohn-Becker as her first example, so I looked into her influences and found Paul Sérusier among others.

Sérusier was influenced early on by Paul Gauguin, which seems to have led to his use of pure, bright but naturally-derived colours, and flat shapes with reduced detail. His compositions also owe a lot to Japanese prints.

He was later drawn to try to capture a religious stillness in his figures, but he spent a long time observing people going about their business in Brittany. I think the landscapes where he's included figures like these are charming. Although I don't know what the locals would have made of his idealistic portrayals of country life. They might say, "Surely we're not all as stocky as each other?!" Or maybe they wouldn't take it personally.

Earlier on I watched "Exit Through the Gift Shop", which is a funny and revealing film about street art.