Night I 1962

Karlo Zvirynsky made this painting, Night I, sometime in the 20th century with oil on canvas. It's a dark ground from which objects emerge. I can imagine Zvirynsky in his studio at night. I see him puzzling out what to put in this painting, moving things around, shifting forms and ideas until they sit just right. Night I feels like a gathering of images and symbols, things he’s seen, things he remembers, and things he imagines. It’s not a still life, but rather a collection of images that feel emotionally resonant. Look at the surface, the textures created by the brushstrokes. Notice the way the paint is applied, sometimes thick, sometimes thin, revealing the under layers of color. What’s amazing is the way he flattens everything, reducing objects to their bare essence, almost like an alphabet of forms and shapes. It makes me think of other painters like Marsden Hartley, or Myron Stout who shared a similar interest in distilling form to its essence. Painters, you know, we're all in conversation with each other across time. We are all constantly borrowing and building on each other’s ideas and approaches to image-making. We all embrace ambiguity, open to many possible meanings.