Puppeteer in the town square 1943

Rafael Zabaleta made "Puppeteer in the Town Square" with what looks like oil on canvas. There’s a directness to the application of paint, kind of raw, and immediate, as though the image was pulled out of the ether in one go. The textural quality is pretty striking. Zabaleta uses the brush in a way that you can really see the direction and the pressure of each stroke. Especially in the puppet master's jacket, the paint looks thick, almost sculptural, giving a real sense of depth. Then you see the blue grey legs of the puppet dancers, and the contrast with the warmer tones of the figures surrounding them. It's like Zabaleta is using color to set up different emotional registers. The way the artist’s let the brown underpainting peek through throughout the artwork, feels like a nod to artists like Goya, who used simple palettes in their paintings to create a sense of drama.