Paris 1946

František Hudeček made this watercolour painting, called 'Paris,' sometime in 1946. There's something about the looseness of the brushstrokes and the watery quality of the pigments that makes it feel like a fleeting impression, a memory of a place rather than a precise depiction. Look at how the buildings in the background sort of dissolve into the sky, and those vertical black lines create a sense of depth and perspective, like looking through the scaffolding. I'm drawn to that small patch of blue at the top left, a little square of optimism amidst the somewhat somber tones, and that hint of blue seems to be picked up again on the ground. It makes me think of other artists who were interested in the poetics of urban space, like Giorgio de Chirico, but Hudeček has a lightness to his touch that makes it feel unique. It embraces a certain degree of ambiguity. There's no need to pin down a single interpretation here.