Still Life 1939

Yiannis Moralis made this painting, Still Life, with oil, maybe some time in the mid 20th Century. The way the surfaces are rendered really intrigues me, like he’s figuring out what can be captured in a single stroke. Look at the open book, and the thick, loaded brushstrokes that define its pages. The off-white has so much body, so much presence, it’s almost as if the contents of the book are becoming material. You can feel the weight of the paint and how the artist worked with the medium, trying to capture the quietness of these objects, the texture of the paper, the gleam of the little box, the gentle curve of the pearls. Maybe Moralis had seen some Chardin, but then stripped back any sense of luxury and made a painting that felt really like an honest appraisal of how a person lives with objects. What do you think?