Girls 

Editor: Rudolf Bér’s “Girls,” an oil painting done with visible, thick brushstrokes, presents us with two seated women in a post-impressionist style. There's a quiet stillness in the composition that makes me wonder about the unspoken narrative between them. How do you interpret the symbolism and the potential socio-political commentary within this painting? Curator: The seeming "stillness" you identify is really a pregnant moment, wouldn't you agree? Bér painted this in a period of profound socio-political upheaval in Hungary and across Europe. Given that backdrop, how do you think these 'girls' – these women – are situated? Are they passive observers, or might their postures and positioning suggest something more nuanced about their agency within a changing world? Consider their clothes, their settings... do they evoke a particular social class, and what might that suggest given the art-historical context? Editor: That's a great point about their agency. Their clothing and the interior setting do suggest a degree of domesticity, perhaps even confinement, in a world that was rapidly changing. Their slightly downcast eyes made me initially consider how the post-impressionist approach to portraying women reflects the limitations and social confinement in representing their identities at the time. Does the choice of genre, with its suggestion of every day domesticity, serve to challenge that at all? Curator: Exactly! We see that conflict play out through the brushstrokes themselves – the almost violent application of paint in some areas pushes against this smooth passivity that's so closely related to the domestic portrayal of women in art history. Where do you see this visual tension manifest the most? Is Bér celebrating or critiquing it? Editor: I think I see that tension most vividly in their hands— they are quite rigid! Thanks to you, I can understand it's more about revealing tensions of identity and agency in a changing society than just showing a "genre painting"! Curator: And the beauty lies there, doesn't it, in unraveling the layered stories woven into each brushstroke.