The turning road by andre drain: exploring fauvism

One of the paintings that make me drawn into at the Museum of Fine Art Houston was The Turning Road, L’Estaque by Andre Drain. My first impression of this painting was it really colorful, but somehow it blended very nice with warm colors and cool colors together. And the place was very interesting, the park’s location was hollow and it seems to be out of nowhere.

Andre Drain is a French artist during the Post-Impressionist era. He was born in 1880 and died in 1954. As an artist, he is known for being a part of a contribution to developing Cubism and Fauvism during the early 20th century with unusual landscapes. He began as an artist life by studying under Eugène Carrière at the Académie Carriere, who is an artist during the symbolist movement. During his stay at school, he was friends with Henri Matisse and Maurice de Vlaminck. Later on, they shared the studio and helping each other to develop their individual artistic skills. This led Andre Drain went to Southern French and joined Henri Mattisse to develop an aspect in a new style. With this trip, Andre Drain then drew The Turning Road with a landscape at the French village of L’Estaque. Paul Cezanne, who is also known for establishing cubism also draw this landscape before (“ André Derain The Turning Road, L’Estaque”). However, in the painting of The Turning Road, the artist also explored something new called” Fauvism” which means “ Wild Beast”.

Fauvism is a style of expressing emotion through bright colors. The word “ Fauvism” came from a critic, who negatively reacted to the shocking and surprising of the bright color (Gardner). In the Turning Road, the artist used burning red, orange and blue to draw trees, and yellow to draw sunlight (“ André Derain The Turning Road, L’Estaque”). This painting had expressed the real place overrun by decorative impulse. Additionally, probably because of the influence from his teacher, since this landscape was not a pure landscape, it makes the painting have Symbolist element as the artist expresses the individual spirit in a fantasy world using his imagination. In this painting, since the artist also using color, line, and shape to express his emotions(“ André Derain Artworks & Famous Paintings.”). I believed he used mostly warm color to draw people to either shows the body’s temperature heat or to symbolize that the people were warm and nice in this part of this town. And the cool colors such as blue were used to symbolize the shading that protects people from the shining sun.

This painting was based on a location that was able to give a view over the Bay of Marseilles. Unfortunately, this place now had become part of the Industrial outskirts of Marseilles (“ MODERN”).