Circus 1935

Vilmos Aba-Novak made this painting, called "Circus," and who knows when exactly, maybe in one inspired go? Just kidding, it must have emerged slowly, from a dark palette of blacks, reds, and ochres, punctuated by pops of light. I can imagine Aba-Novak wrestling with the canvas, trying to capture the energy of the circus. What's the trick of getting the scene to feel right? Are those spotlights slashing through the space? The paint looks pretty thin, stained into the canvas, so he must have scrubbed and wiped a lot. Look how the figures emerge from the dark ground, their faces so expressive. Those circus performers, captured in such a casual, fleeting moment. I bet he was looking at Daumier’s paintings and prints, that same sense of the everyday, but charged with emotion. The circus is a timeless subject, like, who hasn't tried to capture that mix of joy and melancholy? Painting allows for that kind of ambiguity, where nothing is ever really fixed, and the conversation between artists just keeps going.