Nude girl with a basket of apples 1912

Tadeusz Makowski painted this oil, "Nude Girl with a Basket of Apples", at an unknown date. The earth-tone palette gives this painting a sense of depth and shadow, but look closer, and you’ll see how Makowski’s mark-making transcends mere representation. There’s a looseness here, a sense of the artist working and reworking the image, building it up layer by layer, decision by decision. It’s less about the final image and more about the journey of its creation. Now, notice the texture of the paint, the way it’s been applied thinly in some areas, allowing the canvas to peek through, and thickly in others, creating a tactile surface. And what about that basket of apples? Each apple is rendered with such care, such attention to detail, that they seem to glow with an inner light. It reminds me a little of Paula Modersohn-Becker’s earthy, grounded figures. Like her, Makowski invites us to slow down, to savor the sensuality of the paint, and to find beauty in the simplest of forms.