Hand 1956

Alekos Kontopoulos made this painting of a Hand with oil on canvas. The muted palette, all browns and blues, makes me think of the old masters. Imagine Kontopoulos daubing and smearing the paint, coaxing the image forth from nothingness. I feel a sense of intimacy here. The hand, monumental in scale, dominates the composition. The artist is thinking about line, color, and form, trying to reconcile the flat surface of the canvas with the illusion of three-dimensional space. It’s like he’s searching for the essence of ‘handness’ itself. See the way the light catches the tips of the fingers, how the brushstrokes follow the contours of the form. The texture is thick and creamy, almost sculptural in places, and it adds to the tactile quality of the work. Painting is a conversation, a back-and-forth between artists across time, each building upon the discoveries of their predecessors. We are all just trying to figure it out as we go along.