Restless animals 1936

Mikuláš Galanda made this watercolour titled ‘Restless Animals’. I can imagine him bent over a table in his studio, the brush loaded with pigment, moving deftly across the paper. Look at these ochre cows, how they assert themselves into being through layered strokes and expressive lines. Each animal is rendered with a sense of immediacy, as if Galanda is capturing a fleeting impression rather than a detailed depiction. It feels as though there's an act of translation happening – a cow becoming paint becoming feeling. I can imagine Galanda thinking about cubism in Paris and rethinking it in Slovakia. The setting is spare with simple geometric houses and a moody sky. The transparency of the watercolor lends a lightness to the composition, and it's as though Galanda invites the viewer to complete the painting in their mind's eye. These cows could be stand-ins for how we think about home, life, and land. Just an exchange between painterly ideas through time.