Liegender Halbakt c. 1908

Adolf Hölzel created this oil painting of a reclining nude. It’s worked in a warm, earthy palette and the brushstrokes build up into a thick crust, giving the impression of light struggling to emerge from darkness. I wonder about the labor that went into making this picture. Can you imagine Hölzel, with brush in hand, standing before the canvas, trying to bring forth a figure from the gloom? He’s pushing and pulling, scraping back and layering. See that stroke of white on the model’s hip? It’s so direct and sure, it seems to capture the very moment of contact, the spark of recognition between the artist and the subject. Hölzel, like so many artists before and after him, was clearly fascinated by the human form. It’s a subject that never gets old because it’s always about our own relationship to embodiment. Painters are constantly revisiting and reinterpreting these themes, like having an ongoing conversation across time. It’s never really about definitive statements but about embracing the beauty of ambiguity.