Winter Landscape 1979

Ivan Generalic painted this 'Winter Landscape', but we don't know exactly when. I see each dab of paint, the houses, the trees, and the sky, all so carefully placed with the brush. Did he feel the quiet of the snow as he made it, I wonder? The silence and anticipation of winter, and the bright glow of a warm house. What a thing to make a painting like this – it is hard to explain what painting really *is*. I notice how each flake is almost exactly the same size, each placed very carefully so the work has a feeling almost like a naive painting; no, not quite, there is something more knowing here. The orange glow behind the dark sky gives a feeling of something beyond this space, of a divine presence, perhaps. You know, we painters are always looking at each other's work, borrowing and learning over generations. It's all one big conversation, trying to find out how to really see.