The Riot in the Fog

Andre Derain didn’t go to London to paint the fog. He went there because Ambroise Vollard wanted a fight. Vollard was a dealer with a nose for blood and a wallet to match. He looked at the hazy and atmospheric views of the Thames painted by Monet and decided he wanted something with more teeth. He sent Derain to the docks with a clear mission to outdo the old master.

Derain arrived in 1906 and found a city choking on coal smoke and grey mist. Most artists would have reached for the lead white and the muted ochres to capture that polite English gloom. Derain reached for dynamite. He looked at the Pool of London and saw screaming blues and violent yellows. He did not care about the actual color of the water or the sky. He cared about how the industrial heart of the world felt when it was beating against your ribs.

The composition looks like a postcard from a distance. It has the bridges and the masts and the sense of a busy port. But up close the brushstrokes are aggressive. They are thick and fast and unapologetic. This is Fauvism at its most arrogant. It is the sound of a young man shouting over the noise of the steamships. He took the polite tradition of landscape painting and set it on fire. He proved that reality is just a suggestion. Color is the only thing that actually matters when the world is changing too fast to catch.

References

Derain, Andre. The Pool of London. 1906. Oil on canvas. Tate Modern, London.

Vollard, Ambroise. Recollections of a Picture Dealer. London: Constable and Company, 1936.

Lee, Jane. Derain. London: Phaidon Press, 1990.