Il bersaglio 1928

Carlo Carra made this landscape painting, Il bersaglio, at an unknown date, most likely with oil paint on canvas. The way he's laid down the paint here is what grabs me, all these little marks, a little house made of dabs and dashes. You can almost feel Carra feeling his way through this scene. And the colors, right? That muted palette, it’s so Italian. There's a stillness to it. You look closely, and you see how the brown of the earth meets the blue of the house, how the tree, so skeletal, almost fades into the sky. It’s like he's not just painting what he sees, but what he feels. The way the buildings are arranged reminds me of de Chirico, that same sense of quiet, unsettling geometry. But here, it’s warmer, more human, less uncanny. It's like looking at a dream that’s both familiar and just slightly out of reach.