Deep Twilight, Pyrenees

Evening settles over the Pyrenees in this 1912 or 1913 painting by James Dickson Innes, a Welsh artist who couldn't stay away from these mountains straddling the French and Spanish border. He returned to them time and again, and here he catches the fleeting moment when the sun has almost gone and the hills seem to blaze with color. Purple, red, and deep blue sit in bold flat patches across the canvas, while long ribbons of cloud drift across the top and dark peaks jut up beneath them.

Innes painted fast and with real emotion, and that hurry shows in the thick, lively way the paint clings to the surface. His approach borrows heavily from the French Fauves, who prized feeling and color over careful detail. His story carries a sad weight too, since he died of tuberculosis in 1914 at just twenty seven. Knowing that, these mountain scenes take on a certain poignancy, as if he was rushing to pin down everything he saw and felt while time was still on his side.