Kůň Drásaný Lvem 1938

Emil Filla made Kůň Drásaný Lvem with paint, but it's like, what *kind* of paint? Look closely and you'll see the marks aren't blended and smooth, there's actually quite a bit of texture and layering, almost like crayon or gouache. The painting is this raw, emotional battle between a horse and a lion, all teeth and screams under a ghostly moon. You can almost feel Filla wrestling with the paint, smearing and scraping to create these tense, struggling forms. It’s not about perfection, it’s about process. That wild, dark tail of the horse, for instance, it's not just a tail, it's a series of deliberate, expressive marks. It's almost like the whole painting is made of these rough edges, these moments of pure, unadulterated feeling. I wonder if he knew Picasso? The expressive, kind of clumsy shapes are of a similar vein. For me, painting is like having a conversation that never ends.