Głowa chłopca w kapeluszu 1925

Tadeusz Makowski made this painting, "Head of a Boy in a Hat," with oil on canvas. Look at how he models the form with short, simple strokes, and this kind of humble, material-based approach is key to how I think about painting. It’s a fairly limited palette. You've got off-whites, browns, pinks, and blacks doing all the work. See how thinly the paint's been applied, almost like watercolour in places? It's all about the surface, the way the light catches those tiny brushstrokes, giving the boy’s face a gentle, almost ethereal quality. The blush on his cheeks is very striking, a concentrated, almost circular pink, standing in contrast to the subdued tones. This feels like an earlier painterly exploration, something like Vuillard, where the everyday becomes a subject for deeper reflection. It reminds us that art is not about answers but about conversations, a back-and-forth across time and styles.