Tickling 1904

Jose Malhoa's "Tickling" is a painting which seems to have emerged from earth tones and ochres, worked and reworked, like the changing of seasons. I imagine Malhoa out in the fields, watching, observing, and synthesizing the scene as a total experience. There is a rawness in the brushstrokes. He isn’t shy to leave them exposed, allowing the viewer to be party to his process. See how the artist seems to have captured the sensation of touch through the texture of paint itself? The dry brushwork mimics the feeling of the hay. The dark contour of the figure brings the material to life. There's a lovely give and take between abstraction and representation. Painters like Manet were doing this at the time, and you sense Malhoa in conversation with them. All painters are gossiping with each other across time like this. In the end, painting is an embodied expression, a material record of a way of seeing the world. It’s not about answers, it is a question that keeps unfolding.