Evening Lights 1959

Piroska Szanto made this painting, Evening Lights, using what looks like oil on canvas, though I don’t know when. The almost monochromatic palette gives the impression of a calm evening, full of dark blues and purples, offset by the bright orange glow emanating from windows. The paint handling looks pretty straightforward, like she’s not trying to hide the fact that she’s using a brush to push paint around. There’s something very contemporary feeling about this painting, actually. It’s like, she’s not trying to pull the wool over our eyes! The paint is opaque, and in some areas quite thick, look at the branches of the trees on the left for example. There’s not a whole lot of blending, but it feels like she had a pretty good handle on how different colours affect each other when placed side-by-side. The way she’s built up these layers, the darks against the lights, reminds me a little of Milton Avery, though he generally worked with a more limited palette, and there’s a looseness here that feels quite unique. Ultimately, though, it’s the painting’s ambiguity that stays with me.