Paysage coloré aux oiseaux aquatiques is a Proto-Cubist work executed in a Post-Divisionist style with a unique Fauve-like palette.

[1] Paysage coloré aux oiseaux aquatiques is an oil painting on canvas in a horizontal format with dimensions 75.5 x 101 cm (29.7 by 39.8 in).

The work represents three aquatic birds in an ambrosial Mediterranean landscape with semi-tropical vegetation, trees, a body of water, mountains and a sailboat in the background.

Though not without reference to the real world, Metzinger's treatment of the painted surface is meant to draw away from the outward appearance of nature.

Its combination of painterly techniques, color and exoticism in its subject matter, sets it apart, resulting in a broader scope typically employed to define the Fauve movement.

Indeed, Metzinger, unlike others of his immediate circle, or peripheral entourage, would soon become one of the founders of Cubism—flanked between Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque on the one hand, Albert Gleizes, Henri Le Fauconnier, Robert Delaunay, Fernand Léger on the other—and this painting was a step in that direction.