Yellow-Green Landscape 1919

Sandor Bortnyik made this yellow-green landscape sometime in the 20th century with oil on canvas. It’s so cool to see how he's building up this geometric world with a limited color palette – those oranges, greens, and blacks play off each other so well. There’s something about the texture here that grabs me; the paint looks like it's been layered on with a bit of thickness, and it gives the whole thing a tactile feel, even from a distance. You can almost feel the brushstrokes, especially in those darker, shadowy areas. The orange is more opaque, but then the green is laid on top like a glaze. The buildings almost seem like they're glowing from within. Look at the bottom right, the way he's created the rooftops of the houses. It's almost like a puzzle, and I find myself trying to piece it together. This all reminds me a little of those early Cubist landscapes by Braque, where they were breaking down forms into facets. Bortnyik’s landscape has a similar vibe, but with a bit more warmth, maybe? The beauty of art is how it keeps echoing and transforming over time.