View of the sea 1927

Tadeusz Makowski made this painting, View of the Sea, with oil on canvas. What strikes me first is the texture, built up from many small strokes. You can almost feel the wind and spray coming off the waves. There’s a clear relationship between the materiality of the paint, and the scene it represents. Oil paint, of course, begins as refined pigment. The material itself has a history rooted in labor, politics, and trade. The application of paint is also work, though here, seemingly freely applied, as if striving to capture a fleeting moment. The way the wooden pier has been described is also interesting. We see a structure that has itself been produced by human labor, with visible construction and the use of fairly rough-hewn wooden planks. Ultimately, to fully appreciate this work, we must consider both the artistic intention and the physical reality of its making, thereby enriching our understanding of art history itself.