Dziewczynka w kapeluszu 1928

Tadeusz Makowski painted "Girl in a Hat" with oils and what looks like a whole lot of heart. Look at how the colors just barely touch each other. The hat's almost a block of stone, yet it softens into the face beneath. It's like he's building the form out of feelings, not just shapes. The texture of the paint is really something here – thick in places, scraped back in others. You can almost feel him wrestling with the canvas. See that pink smudge on the girl's cheek? It's both clumsy and tender, awkward and full of life, all at once. Makowski reminds me a little of Chaïm Soutine, who also took on representation only to reveal something truer about the world by breaking it apart. In the end, art's not about answers but about all the great questions.