Chaim Soutine was yet another brilliant but tragically short lived painter, dying at the age of 50 in 1943. He was a Russian Jew who studied art as a youth in his native Belarus then emigrated to Paris in 1913. There, among the many diverse artistic influences, his distinct expressionistic style found its voice and over the next two decades he produced a powerful body of work. However, he wasn’t hailed as the great painter he truly was until the days just before the start of World War II.
As a Jew in German occupied France, he was forced to be always on the move from safe haven to the next in order to avoid the Gestapo. He sometimes found himself sleeping outside in the forests. In 1943, he suffered a perforated stomach ulcer and died during emergency surgery.
He is best known for his paintings of the carcasses of meat and his still lives, all painted in his wild, heavily impasto manner. However, for me, it is his landscapes that are the real treasures. They have a tremendous amount of movement through them that forms a rhythm that, along with the color and contrasts of the surface, make them sing for me. I just see them as being very powerful pieces.
Take a look for yourself at some of my favorite Soutine landscapes.
Redtree Times 
The first painting brought to mind Munch’s “The Scream.” Look at the two houses foreground left, and the one just right of center. One of them on the left even is holding its “hand” to its “mouth.” The timeline suggests Soutine could have known Munch’s work. Whether he was influenced is an open question, I suppose, but it’s still a remarkable bit of serendipity.
Actually, he was considered to be most inspired by Rembrandt. However, the uncertainty and tone of that time in Europe, with two world wars and the tumultuous time in between, would most certainly have inspired the angst displayed by both Munch and Soutine.
On Fri, Dec 11, 2015 at 8:17 AM, Redtree Times wrote:
>
Love the energy!! However I grew up where my immediate community were people who had left Europe during and soon after WW2 They kind of created a little Europe all around us. The thing that is remarkable is in spite of the discord in Europe at the time, they all were profoundly home sick. To this day their descendants, regard the old way as the order of things. It’s incredible to watch, give them a hand saw, hammer and nails, and they can build a farm. They aren’t backward in any stretch of the imagination, but, if they don’t have resources for a particular job, they just dust off ancient skills. Another note, I read this someplace. The perigees and stuffed cabbage rolls were a convenience food. They could eat them on the run and not leave a trail. I grew up being told that often they would be housed in a barn, and the gestapo would come, and they would have to pick up and leave at a moments notice. I so admire these remarkable people.