Winter Landscape With River And Bird 1913

Julian Fałat created this landscape painting with oils, and like a lot of painting, it is all about the brush marks. Look how the brush strokes almost mimic the textures they depict. The icy snowbanks have got these tiny jabs of paint, laid on thick, and then the water is smoother, with long horizontal strokes that kind of drag across the surface. And just a hint of that icy blue lurking underneath. The paint’s not trying to trick you into thinking it IS water, but, you know, it kind of is! The bird seems to have appeared with a couple of flicks of the wrist. There's a kind of shorthand here, a beautiful efficiency. Makes me think of Constable and his cloud studies, that same interest in natural phenomenon with a concentration on process. It’s all just paint, trying to be something else.