Grafía Antiga 1939

This dreamlike landscape, Grafía Antiga, was painted by Xul Solar using watercolor. I imagine he was inspired by the Argentinean landscape to build this composition. Look at the palette of blues, grays, and muted tones, with occasional flashes of white and red. The paint is thin, like watercolor, almost translucent, allowing the whiteness of the support to shine through. See how the forms emerge and dissolve, with a sense of fluidity and movement. I'm totally drawn to the soft, undulating lines. The forms, almost like figures or symbols, create a sense of depth. It reminds me of other painters who used abstraction to express interior states of consciousness, like Hilma af Klint. Perhaps Solar was thinking about an ancient form of communication, maybe the language of dreams? In any case, art is an ongoing conversation, right? We build on what came before.