Dödens husarer 1919

Nils Dardel made Dödens husarer with paint and probably some kind of brush, though it's hard to tell exactly what he used. There's something so raw and immediate about this painting. The way he's thrown down these figures – the green, the yellow, the orange, all on top of these wild horses. It’s all process, all feeling, right there on the surface. You can almost feel him wrestling with the image. Take the orange rider in the middle. The way Dardel uses these thick, almost clumsy lines to define the nose and mouth, it’s not about being pretty or realistic. The painting is more about capturing a sense of the grotesque, this macabre dance of death. Then there's the red, so thick and brooding, that threatens to engulf everything. It reminds me a little of Ensor's masks, with their exaggerated features and sense of dark humor. Art's a conversation, right? A back-and-forth across time.