Muž s bolavou rukou 1919

Josef Capek made this painting of a man with a sore arm with oil paint, sometime around 1910. The subdued palette feels heavy, but the angularity of the form is full of potential energy. I can almost feel Capek smacking the paint onto the canvas as he’s trying to figure out how to show the world from a new angle, literally. The man is hunched over, maybe in pain, but the painting doesn’t wallow, it’s more like a record of the artist thinking. I wonder if he had been looking at some Cubist paintings? It's like he's not just showing us the man, but also how we see and feel him too. The painting has a tentative, searching energy, like he’s trying to work something out. Painters are always looking at each other's work and trying to figure out how to paint the world. Capek is part of that conversation, even now.