Kees van Dongen — Figurative Painting in a European Museum Gallery

5 October 2017 · Paris

Kees van Dongen's full-length figure painting hangs in a European museum gallery, its gold-ornamented frame pressing against a pale grey wall. The subject stands confident, one hand on her hip — dark stockings, ruffled skirt, pale bodice, and heavily kohled eyes. Van Dongen's Fauvist brushwork does two things at once: it flattens the figure into broad colour fields and charges it with a restless, theatrical energy that reads across the room.