Resting Farmers 1930 - 1940

Arnold Peter Weisz-Kubínčan made this painting, Resting Farmers, with oil paint, and what looks like a whole lot of feeling. The dark palette and gestural marks really give the sense of labour and weariness. It feels like the artist has built up layers of paint, with strokes that are almost slashing at the surface, to try and capture this feeling of exhaustion. I imagine Weisz-Kubínčan standing before the canvas, wrestling with how to show not just the image of resting farmers, but the weight of their work. There is a rhythm to the application, a kind of back-and-forth between the subject and the act of painting itself. The thick paint and visible brushstrokes almost add to the sense of heaviness, the weight of the land and their lives pressing down. It reminds me a little of Van Gogh, but maybe a touch darker, more somber. All these painters, talking to each other across time through the language of paint and brushstrokes.