dog in a happy landscape

thanks wikiart.org (PD)

I have to say it: I always liked Post-Impressionism better than Impressionism, and I like this 1919 piece by great Post-Impressionist Maurice Denis.  Denis (1870-1943) was one of the first artists to state that his pictures were flat planes covered by color first and foremost.  All paintings are, of course, but Denis was taking a stand for the bolder presence of color in portrayal.  In this cheering, sunlit view of a happy bunch in Around a Child with Dog, you think at first you're looking at modeling, and you are, but those rounded presences are made with big areas of strong pigmentation.  And the sunlit fur on that dog! Yum.