Two Seated Figures 1955

Robert Goodnough made this painting, “Two Seated Figures,” in 1955, and it's oil on canvas. I love how the figures are barely there, almost camouflaged by the fractured planes of color. It’s like he's saying, "Hey, let's see what happens if we break everything apart and then put it back together…sort of." The surface is built up with layers of small brushstrokes, creating this really tactile, almost mosaic-like effect. Look at the way the colors bleed into each other within each shape; reds, blues, greens, all jostling for space. Then there's that heavy black line that both defines and traps them in their triangular cages, a crude attempt to impose order on what looks like glorious chaos. It's like a stained-glass window after an earthquake. This fragmentation reminds me of some of Picasso’s cubist portraits. Like him, Goodnough is interested in capturing multiple perspectives simultaneously. He invites us to see the world not as a fixed, stable thing, but as a collection of shifting, overlapping fragments.