Flowers and fruit 1932

Zygmunt Waliszewski made this still life painting with oil on canvas. It's like a collection of ordinary things, but given a special kind of attention and energy. The way the paint is applied is so physical, almost sculptural. Look at the vase of flowers, for example, you can almost feel the pressure of each stroke, the way the artist loaded the brush and then released it onto the canvas. The paint is pretty thick, and there's this mix of opaque and translucent layers, giving the whole surface a kind of shimmer. It feels like the artist was really there, wrestling with the paint, figuring things out as they went along. The way the plants and flowers jostle for space in the frame, the way the stems are almost lost within the overall composition, to me that brings to mind the work of Giorgio Morandi, another artist who found endless possibilities within the everyday. Ultimately, this is a painting that celebrates the beauty of the imperfect, the messy, and the unresolved.