Still-life in Yellow 1960

Bela Czobel painted this "Still-life in Yellow" with what looks like a very intuitive, process-based approach. It’s all about the immediacy of colour. There’s a real physicality to the paint, it's not just colours, it’s a kind of substance. Notice the energetic strokes building up the yellows and oranges of the composition. The brushwork isn’t trying to hide, you can see exactly how Czobel applied the paint, layering and overlapping. There is also a blue mark on the top left, it is like an interruption, or maybe a window on another scene. Czobel was a contemporary of Matisse. Both artists sought to create a sense of joy through colour. This piece isn’t about perfection, it’s about the joy of looking and feeling.