Effets de soleil sur l'eau

In the summer of 1905, André Derain set up his easel alongside Henri Matisse in the south of France, and the two friends went a little wild with color. When their canvases reached Paris later that year, a critic sneered that these painters were "les Fauves," or the wild beasts. The insult became a badge of honor, and Fauvism was born. This painting, "Effets de soleil sur l'eau," shows what all the fuss was about. Derain covered the surface with quick dabs of hot pink, moody blue, and bright green, letting the brushstrokes buzz against one another like the flicker of light on a summer evening.

The subject could not be simpler: a stretch of water glowing under a setting sun, clouds gathering above. Derain had no interest in painting things exactly as they looked. A golden trail of reflected light slices straight down the middle, drawing your gaze toward the horizon and giving the flat scene a real sense of depth. The colors are exaggerated on purpose, chosen for how they make you feel rather than how accurate they might be. For a young painter, it was a bold way of thinking, and it helped push art in a whole new direction over the course of a single sun-soaked season.