Après-midi de printemps 1961

Natalia Dumitresco, a Romanian-French abstract painter, has made this evocative painting, Après-midi de printemps, with thick, vibrant strokes of red, grey, and gold. Looking at the surface, I can almost feel Natalia at work, scraping and layering, building up these faceted, almost architectural forms. I imagine her, brush in hand, stepping back, squinting, then leaning in again. The overall impression is not of a calm spring afternoon but of something more frantic, alive with energy, a landscape viewed through the lens of Cubism. There is an echo of Braque or Gris in the construction of planes, but the colour is all Natalia. She's having a conversation, you know, with the masters, twisting their language into her own unique syntax. It's a dynamic exchange across time, as each artist sees through the other’s eyes, borrowing, challenging, and reinventing. It reminds me that painting isn't just about what we see but how we feel and reimagine the world.