Circus Performer on Horses 1940

Cyprián Majerník painted this circus scene with oil, sometime before 1945, and straight away you can see it's not about precision. It's about the feeling of being at the circus. The paint here is pretty thin, washy even, and the forms are built up with these very gestural strokes. Look at the way the horses are rendered, especially the one in front. It's like Majerník is sketching with paint, quickly capturing the essence of the animal's form. See that dark brown outline on the horse's back? It's not really a line, but more like a shadow that suggests the roundness of the body. And the colours, muted browns and creams, give the whole scene a kind of nostalgic, dreamlike quality. Majerník reminds me a little of someone like Milton Avery, in the way he simplifies forms and uses colour to create a mood. But there's also something uniquely his own here, a kind of raw energy and immediacy that makes this painting so engaging. Art is always about these kinds of conversations, an artist taking something from another and making it their own.