Piazza San Marco No.25 (White Piazza) 1957

William Congdon made this painting, *Piazza San Marco No.25 (White Piazza)*, using thin washes and delicate lines to evoke a sense of place. The colors are so muted, almost bleached, like a memory fading. I can imagine Congdon, squinting in the Venetian light, trying to capture not just what he saw, but how it felt to be there. He lays down these translucent layers, one over another, letting the ghost of the architecture emerge from the fog of paint, and this reminds me of Turner, but then the scratchy lines reminds me of Cy Twombly. There's this tension between representation and abstraction, the way the lines suggest the arches and columns of the Piazza, but also dissolve into pure, gestural marks. It is like he is trying to pin down something ephemeral. Painters are always in conversation, riffing off each other's ideas. Congdon’s painting feels like an intimate, almost secretive, dialogue between what is seen, what is remembered, and what is felt.