Painted from Nature 1937

Victor Brauner painted ‘Painted from Nature’ in 1937, and in it the surreal meets the everyday in a real head-scratcher of a painting! Brauner lays down the paint with an almost folksy directness. There's no fancy blending, just pure color doing its thing. Look at that dreamy, blueish canvas he’s painting, the one within the painting. It looks like some kind of love landscape! But the real kicker? The painter's got paintbrushes coming right out of his eyes, painting the image. This is where Brauner gets really interesting. Is he saying that we literally "see" the world through the act of painting? It's like he's turning vision inside out! You can see how someone like Philip Guston, with his own goofy, personal symbolism, might have been looking at Brauner. It’s a reminder that art isn't just about what you see, but about how you see it.