Painting 1917

Amadeo de Souza-Cardoso made this untitled painting with oils on canvas, and I get such a kick out of the way he's juggling so many different languages and symbols! There are these cool, flat planes of color bumping up against each other, but then you see these more textured areas, like the gold leaf at the top, which look almost collaged. It's like he's saying, "Hey, painting can be anything!" I am drawn to the way the shapes and lines seem to dance across the surface, creating a sense of movement and energy. The colors are bold and vibrant, and they seem to vibrate against each other. You see bits of recognizable things, like letters and numbers, but they never quite add up to a clear message. It's a playful, open-ended kind of painting, like a conversation that never really settles on one topic. Picasso was doing similar things, obviously, but Souza-Cardoso's got his own fresh take on the idea of a painting as a space for pure visual thinking.