Wheatfield in Normandy

Wheatfield in Normandy, at Museum Barberini in Potsdam, belongs to Dufy's series of Norman landscape paintings from around 1935 — a return to the terrain of his childhood in Le Havre that became increasingly important to him as his career progressed. The Norman wheatfield offered a subject far removed from the fashionable racecourses and Mediterranean regattas with which he was popularly associated, and these northern landscapes show a quieter, more meditative side of his art. The warm gold of ripening wheat was, however, as natural a subject for his sun-saturated palette as the flags and sails of his better-known works.

Dufy renders the wheatfield in warm ochres and golds applied in his characteristic wash-and-line technique, the wheat movement suggested by directional strokes that follow the grain's flow. The Norman sky above is handled with cool, light-filled washes that contrast effectively with the warm agricultural ground.