Chiesa del Cestello 1944

Ottone Rosai painted this view of Chiesa del Cestello with oil on canvas, and it’s the way the paint sits on the surface that really grabs me. It's all about the texture, that dry, crumbly feel of the brushstrokes. Look closely at the dome of the church: the colour is built up from reds and pinks. The brushwork is so raw, almost like he's scrubbing the paint into the canvas. It’s not blended or smoothed, it's just kind of there, like a memory. I’m interested in how Rosai’s work sits in between the figurative and the abstract: the buildings are recognisable as buildings, but they’re also just shapes and colours on a surface. It reminds me of Giorgio Morandi, who also found endless inspiration in the simple forms of buildings and bottles. They both understood that art is as much about seeing as it is about feeling.