Houses in Mangalia 1925

Stefan Dimitrescu made this painting of ‘Houses in Mangalia’ with a real scrummy approach to paint. Look at those marks! He's really going for it, isn't he? The way he's applied the paint, thick and juicy, gives the whole scene a kind of restless energy. It's like the landscape itself is alive and moving. The houses seem to grow out of the land with these brushstrokes of ochre, green, and little touches of red, all fighting for space. Check out the foreground, how he layers those strokes, almost like he’s building up the earth itself. There’s something really physical about it, you can almost feel the weight of the paint. It reminds me of some of the Fauvist painters, like Vlaminck, who weren’t afraid to lay it on thick and let the colors sing. Dimitrescu really lets the paint do its thing. It’s a real conversation, and, of course, it’s not finished – nothing really is!