Toilette 1918

Tadeusz Makowski made this painting of two girls, called ‘Toilette’, and it’s all about layering and process. The surface has this build-up, a crust of paint that feels like it’s been worked and reworked. Colors peek through from underneath. You can see it particularly in the girl's faces, how the pink is scrubbed into the ochre. It gives it a warmth, but also a kind of vulnerability. And look at the way the hair is painted, these chunky, almost sculptural strokes. It’s not about realism, it’s about the gesture, the act of painting itself. The whole thing feels like it was arrived at through a conversation, a back and forth between the artist and the canvas. It's like a dance, or an argument, but definitely not a still life. Makowski reminds me a little of someone like Chaim Soutine, that same kind of raw, emotional energy. And like Soutine, he embraces the messiness, the imperfections. Art doesn’t have to be perfect, it just has to be real.