Politicians 1937

Jozef Hanula painted these three figures with oil on canvas, sometime in the 1930s. Look at how he scumbles and smears the paint, building form with layered brushstrokes. You can almost see him wrestling with the stuff. There's a sort of earthy palette, a muted range of browns and tans. It’s very material and you can feel the weight of it. The figures are cropped and clustered, almost claustrophobic. There’s a bloke on the right, puffed up with his pipe, his face a collection of planes and shadows. The others look like they are listening, or maybe scheming. A newspaper, or a document, obscures a key figure. It reminds me a bit of Daumier, the way the paint is worked and the subject matter—ordinary people rendered with so much dignity and gravitas. And, of course, the title hints at the artist’s view on the matter. Ultimately, it’s up to us to decipher what's going on, which is always the most fun.