Břízy 1904

Josef Capek made this painting, Břízy, with what looks like subdued tones of grey and blue. Imagine Capek layering the paint, maybe even scraping it back in places, trying to capture the feel of these birch trees in a field. I see those slender vertical lines of the trunks, and then the shadows they cast, echoing their forms on the ground. It's like he's trying to pin down something fleeting, something about the light or the mood of the place. There's something deeply human about this kind of mark-making, the way he builds up the image through touch. I can almost feel the brush in his hand, the give and take as he coaxes the image into being. And when I look at those trees, I think of other painters, like Mondrian, who were also drawn to the simple beauty of a single tree or a row of trees. It's all part of this ongoing conversation artists have, across time and space.