City Park 1911

Kmetty János made this painting, City Park, sometime in the mid-20th century, using oil on canvas. There’s something delightful about how the shapes are all geometric, and the colours are really muted. It gives me the sense that painting is about taking something real and making it exist on a different plane, which is something I'm always aiming for in my own work. The paint has a lovely surface texture, which seems to invite the eye to wander, and the colour relationships, even though they’re very limited, create a beautiful sense of light and depth. I keep being drawn to the sharp angles, and how they work against what I expect trees to look like; but look closer, and you'll see János doesn't want us to forget that we're looking at a park. He's found a way to keep the idea of representation at play, while also trying something new and exciting. This focus on structure reminds me of the work of Paul Cézanne, another artist who spent his life trying to represent reality through geometry. Both artists remind us that painting isn't just about reproducing an image. It’s also about re-thinking the relationship between us and the world around us.