Irschou 1947

Victor Brauner made "Irschou" with oil on canvas. It features a distinctive palette of yellow, brown, and green. Can you imagine Brauner, mixing colors, layering these stylized forms, working slowly, intuitively, and adjusting his composition? The painting looks almost like a storyboard or a comic book, with a bold, graphic quality. I'm drawn to the figure on the left. It's blocky, architectural, with that geometric 'shield' or 'sandwich board' and those cute boots. What might Brauner have been thinking when he made it? The materials have a unique presence here - the flat, matte surface, the carefully delineated shapes, and the almost playful combination of colors. The shapes all have sharp edges and are carefully outlined, creating this effect of flatness. Like other surrealist painters, Brauner lets the ideas of his subconscious drive him forward. In this way, the work speaks to the ongoing conversation between artists, across time, with the history of painting, and with each other's imaginations. It celebrates the power of art to suggest and evoke, rather than to simply represent.