Nice, Les Platanes 1972

Włodzimierz Zakrzewski painted this view of plane trees in Nice with oil on canvas. I can almost feel Zakrzewski smearing the paint to conjure the scene! Look at how thickly he’s applied it, troweling it on like plaster. You can see the distinct marks of the brush, swirling and diving to make a crusty impasto. The trees are all twisted trunks and snaking branches, rendered in greys and browns with touches of ochre and viridian. I imagine he stood right there, a little chilly in the shade, and wrestled with the paint to capture the scene. Did he mix those colors on the canvas itself, or on his palette? It’s kind of like how Guston would build up forms with clotted, clunky strokes. Zakrzewski coaxes the paint to evoke the texture and form, the light and shadows, in a kind of material dance. Painters are always talking to each other, across time and space, responding and reacting and riffing off what came before. What we’re left with is an embodied expression, a world of ambiguity, and a space for endless interpretations.