Bare oaks, Newlands, late autumn 1968

Gregoire Boonzaier made this landscape painting, Bare oaks, Newlands, late autumn, with visible, energetic brushstrokes, capturing a fleeting moment. The brushstrokes build texture, mirroring nature’s own ruggedness. The painting has these great thick layers of paint, you can almost feel the roughness of the tree bark and the crispness of the autumn air. Look at the way Boonzaier renders the branches, they're not just lines, but chunky, sculptural forms, the way the light catches the edges. There’s a beautiful tension between the specificity of the place and the looseness of the rendering, a bit like Van Gogh, who was also interested in that effect. The painting isn't trying to trick you into thinking it's a photograph; it's embracing its own materiality, its own process, which is the beauty of painting, isn't it?