Czóbel Béka Tóth Ember 1904 1904

Béla Czóbel painted 'Czóbel Béka Tóth Ember' in 1904 with what looks like quick, confident strokes, a process of seeing and responding with paint. There's a real physicality to this piece, the way the brushstrokes build up the form of the figure. Look at the bright white of the shirt against the blue jacket, you can almost feel the texture of the fabric. The way the light falls across the face is particularly striking; Czóbel uses these warm yellows and oranges to create a sense of depth and shadow, really defining the contours of the face. It's like he's sculpting with light, each stroke contributing to the overall structure of the image. This feels like a cousin to some of Van Gogh’s portraits, where the act of painting is as important as the subject itself, that embrace of ambiguity is what makes art so endlessly fascinating.