Czóbel Béla Ut 1919 1919

Béla Czóbel made this painting, called Czóbel Béla Ut, in 1919 with what looks like oil paint and maybe some gouache on paper, or a thin canvas. The color palette is muted, almost monochromatic, with these jolts of cobalt blue that really sing. There’s a fence in the foreground and a suggestion of landscape in the background, but it feels like the artist has constructed this as much as observed it. There’s a kind of tension between representation and something more abstract and emotional. Look at that dark vertical line cutting through the composition – is that a tree, or a building? It creates a drama that holds the whole picture together. Czóbel was part of a generation of artists who were trying to find new ways of seeing the world after the war, and his work feels like a continuation of the dialogue opened up by the expressionists. Ultimately the painting is an invitation to look closely and to feel the process of its making, which, in turn, becomes a way of seeing and experiencing the world.