"A silhouette is a movement, not a shape."
Drawing on Impressionism, Fauvism and Cubism, French artist Raoul Dufy is an accomplished and cultured painter. Throughout his long career, Dufy practiced gouache and watercolour alongside oil painting, thus allowing greater vividness of colour and ease of stroke. Dufy usually foregrounds the fugacity of the sensual moment in his work. His art is distinguished by its warmth and insouciance, often seen through the prism of a certain lightness, though this does not make him a simplistic artist; on the contrary, this lighness is carefully worked, wholly intentional and quite refined, opening the door to a meditative art. As attractive and accessible as it is, always keen to express the gaiety of spring, his painting is no less thoughtful for it, and remains deeply intellectual. A spiritual heir to Fragonard, Dufy draws his influences from nature, not to imitate but to "bring out an image which is not that of the natural appearance of things, but which has the force of reality."