Un Yogu 1932

Xul Solar made Un Yogu with watercolor to create a kind of otherworldly vision. The colors here, they're not quite natural, are they? It's like he's inventing a world, and the process of painting it is how he figures out what it looks like. There's a definite texture in "Un Yogu", you can see the grain of the paper coming through the layers of paint. It gives everything this sort of grainy, dreamlike quality. The buildings are all these rectangles of color, stacked together like some impossible city, or maybe a deck of cards? And then, bam! There's that yogi figure, so strange and serene. What's with all those arrows sticking out of his head? It's like Solar is inviting us to meditate with him, in this totally bizarre, totally captivating space. It reminds me a little of Hilma af Klint. Both artists creating their own personal symbologies. It's all about suggesting, not telling.