Carousel 1958

LeRoy Neiman made this painting of a carousel with a riot of colour and energy. What strikes me is how Neiman uses these bright, almost cartoonish colours, laid down in thick, juicy strokes, to capture not just what a carousel looks like, but what it *feels* like. Look at how the colours seem to bleed into each other, creating a sense of movement and blur, like the world spinning around you when you're on one of those rides. The paint is applied with such a thick impasto that you can almost feel the texture of it. The application here is key, you can almost see the artist wrestling with the paint, trying to pin down this fleeting moment of joy. In a way, it reminds me of some of the German Expressionists, like Kirchner, who were also trying to capture the energy of modern life through bold colours and expressive brushwork. Neiman has something of the illustrator about him too, like someone who's seen a lot, and is trying to cram it all into a single image. It's messy, it's chaotic, but that's life, right?