Fiori (Flowers) 1994

Giancarlo Tognoni made this watercolor, titled "Fiori," with washes of luminous color. I can almost feel the brush dancing across the page, now soaking it with watery blues and greens, now adding drier strokes of ochre, brown, and red. I think it's great how Tognoni embraces the fluidity of the medium. The colors blend and bleed into each other, creating a sense of movement, like in a garden as the wind blows. There are more defined graphic marks in blue and purple too, adding a certain structure to the composition. It reminds me of other mid-century painters like Milton Avery, who sought to capture the essence of a scene with minimal means. They're all in conversation, trying to get to the root of what it means to see and to feel. Tognoni's painting is not about depicting the world; rather it's about transforming it through his own sensibility. The gesture is alive, like the painting is still in process. It's a feeling.