The Tenements 1939

O. Louis Guglielmi made 'The Tenements' with oil on canvas and a palette of subdued hues: ochre, rust, sky blue, and faded rose. I can almost imagine Guglielmi standing before the canvas, a brush heavy with pigment in hand, unsure of where the lines would lead him. He probably let the painting guide him, each stroke a question, each color a response. There’s something so vulnerable about that initial commitment to an idea, to the unknown, and I like the way the building’s edges seem uncertain, as though they might dissolve at any moment. Looking at it now, I think about Giorgio de Chirico, and how the work of one painter speaks to another across time. There is a conversation always happening that the likes of you and I can only listen in on, marveling at the way artists grapple with what it means to be here, now, making sense of the world through texture and form. I love the strange objects in the street, like coffins scattered at the corner of a child's game, and then the garland of flowers which wraps around one of the buildings offering respite from the harshness of modern life.