Untitled c. 1917

Amadeo de Souza-Cardoso made this untitled artwork with oil paint, and probably some collage bits, in the early 20th century. The colour palette feels both vivid and oddly muted. It's like he's wrestling with how to make these flat shapes suggest depth or movement, and how the process of wrestling is part of the painting. I love the purple rectangle, it might be an adding machine or something? It’s got a bunch of dots, some with numbers in them, that have been painted on with a really juicy brush. The painting feels very material; you can see the texture of the canvas coming through the paint in some areas, and then other areas are built up and layered. It reminds me a bit of Picabia, in that it feels like a machine has exploded, and it's been reassembled by somebody who doesn't understand machines. It's like a puzzle that refuses to be solved, and, in that way, it feels very contemporary.