Kostel Na Kopci 1921

Jindrich Styrsky made this painting, Kostel Na Kopci, using oil on canvas. He uses a restrained palette here, mostly earth tones, but he varies his mark making to create a real sense of space. The paint is applied in thin washes, allowing Styrsky to build up layers of color and texture gradually. Look at the hill itself, he mixes the ochre with red in such a way that the road seems to be glowing. It invites you to walk along it. I think of Marsden Hartley's paintings of the church at Corea, Maine, when I look at this. Both artists had a way of investing their landscapes with a kind of spiritual yearning. It's like they're not just painting what they see, but what they feel, and that's something I always try to do in my own work too. The painting remains ambiguous, and maybe that’s the point.