The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Tulp 2008

Alexander Roitburd made this painting, The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Tulp, with oil on canvas, the date of which is unknown. The handling of the paint is kind of nutty in this painting, a great combination of buttery and chunky. It's like Roitburd is building the forms with these expressive, visible marks. There's this really strange, almost unsettling, use of texture and color that grabs you. The way he renders the figures, especially the nude child and the strangely unsettling floating objects above, it’s so tactile; you can almost feel the roughness of the paint, like modeling with clay. I'm thinking of the father figure here, his jacket becomes this mass of brown and black marks. Each stroke feels deliberate, adding depth and weight to the character. The purpley blue background, though, it's like a total contrast; it's kind of smooth, pushing the figures forward, and maybe hints at a kind of unreal space. Roitburd reminds me of Philip Guston, with that same willingness to just push the paint around and see what happens. It's this ongoing conversation about what painting can do, how it can make us feel, and how it can challenge what we think we know.