Bela Czobel , Girl Before Mirorr 1965 

Curator: Just seeing this piece gives me that lovely nostalgic melancholy, doesn't it you think? That is just so comforting. The tones just breathe such raw, quietness... Editor: I'm standing before Béla Czóbel's work, entitled "Girl Before Mirror," dating to about 1965. Czóbel, a Hungarian modernist, seems to have rendered this portrait primarily in charcoal, perhaps with some pencil work adding further detail. You've hit upon something interesting... tell me more about why this work strikes you this way? Curator: There's a certain timelessness, you know? It just strikes me like it. Something about that solitary figure with closed eyes seems in its intimate ritual...like a soft caress. This image—drawn of self and by the self—that is like one soul split apart by a glance... Or rather joined... Editor: I do appreciate the feeling that Czóbel gives this figure a feeling that transcends a certain period in fashion. You're definitely right, though. The intimate mood that emerges perhaps stems from the very directness of the media...a stark and straightforward mark on paper in an era marked by consumer spectacle. Curator: The shadows, really… almost engulf her face, pulling our eyes in closer but obscuring just enough so you are not fully there, but in some in-between place in someone's memory.. How do you find yourself experiencing those stark tones? Editor: I notice a stark contrast: in one regard, the artist uses these traditional materials like charcoal and paper but somehow creates something profoundly forward-looking for its time. While there was a boom of interest in realistic images due to pop-art—this takes an alternative path. Also, the way this work displays the subject, it just takes all the power from any sort of objectification. The work avoids easy classification. Curator: Precisely! It avoids a concrete interpretation; but yet... I look at those loose marks near her skirt and am carried away somewhere like a memory from youth... Oh, my mind always drifts far... That charcoal has really swept me away. Editor: I agree that the loose rendering lets you find new details the more that you look at it, a rewarding experience! So different from Pop as a movement. Czóbel lets us witness a quiet moment of observation in all its visual ambiguity. Curator: Thank you! Now, as I turn to move away, I think... isn’t this like the very soul itself… an infinite set of graynesses in a defined shape? Beautiful work! Editor: An interesting takeaway indeed! Thank you for your remarks; I too find the intimacy achieved with such a basic and traditional artform refreshing!