Czóbel Béla Maticska Jenő Festőművész Portréja 1904 1904

Bela Czobel’s portrait of Maticska Jenő, painted in 1904, is an exercise in mark making, which, for me, is another way of saying a study in ‘how to see’. The colours are muted, earthy – browns, greens and greys – but applied with such deliberate, energetic brushstrokes that the painting vibrates with a kind of inner light. Look closely at the area around the sitter’s right shoulder. It's a flurry of short, choppy marks that somehow coalesce into the suggestion of fabric, of form. You can feel the artist's hand moving across the canvas, building up the image layer by layer. This reminds me of the early portraits by someone like Paula Modersohn-Becker, who was also trying to find new ways of representing the human figure through colour and texture. It’s like both artists are embracing ambiguity, inviting us to participate in the act of seeing, rather than simply presenting us with a finished product.