Nude 1962

Yiannis Moralis made this painting of a nude with oil on canvas at some point in the twentieth century. The canvas isn't too big, and it's filled with these broad strokes of creamy white, set against a dark, almost bruised background. It’s all about shapes, the way the figure is composed with its weighty curves, and the tension between the flat picture plane and the illusion of depth. Look at how the white paint sort of gathers along the edges of the figure, thick and almost sculptural. There's a real sense of the hand at work, pushing and pulling the paint across the canvas. It's not so much about capturing a likeness as it is about the act of painting itself. This painting makes me think about how artists like Guston used a similar kind of chunky figuration to get away from the preciousness of the picture plane. It's like Moralis is saying, "Here's a body, but it's also just paint." And that's kind of the magic trick of painting, isn't it?