Still Life (Composition No. 7) 1936

Arshile Gorky made this "Still Life (Composition No. 7)" sometime in the first half of the 20th Century, and looking at it you can just tell he was really wrestling with abstraction as a process. The paint here is slathered on, chunky like cake frosting. It’s tempting to run your fingers across the canvas. What tools did he use to get that rough texture? It looks like it could be a palette knife, something other than a brush. There's one circle in the middle, a bit like the navel of the canvas, acting as a kind of vortex or eye of the painting. Gorky was always looking at other artists – especially Picasso. You can really see echoes of Cubism here. But, like all great painters, he made it completely his own. I love that Gorky takes what he needs, and makes something new that is totally, uniquely his.