At Benetova 1906

František Drtikol created this gouache landscape, At Benetova, on paper, and it's a world of blended browns, greens, and greys. I'm imagining him outside somewhere, maybe balancing the paper on his knees as he paints. It's almost like he's thinking about a mountain, a river, and some trees, while simultaneously thinking about Cezanne and early modernist painting. There is a push-pull of foreground and background, and a nice flattening. I wonder if Drtikol was happy with the overall feeling. I feel for him; it's hard to mix paint, it can get muddy so easily, and here I think he's managed to make something luminous and earthy at the same time. This work exists somewhere in between; it’s neither here nor there, but that is its strength. It sits in the company of other small landscapes that celebrate the joy of seeing, and of painting.