Gypsies with Sunflowers 1927

Otto Mueller made this painting, Gypsies with Sunflowers, with oil on canvas. It's interesting to me because it's not about being slick or showing off a skill. The colours feel very matter of fact, and they just lie on the surface. It's not really about trying to create an illusion of depth, or to trick the eye with rendering. Look at the surface of this painting - you can see the weave of the canvas. Mueller isn't trying to hide the physicality of his materials at all, instead he's layering the paint quite thinly, so the weave shows through. The colours aren't blended together very much, so the tones seem quite flat. The leaves of the sunflower feel very direct and unpretentious to me. You could see some similarity in this to the work of Paula Modersohn-Becker, who was also interested in this idea of a down-to-earth, sensual and authentic existence.