Nudo sdraiato 1940

Renato Guttuso made this painting, Nudo sdraiato, at some point in his life, using oils. Look at how he’s working the colours on the model’s skin; it’s pinkish, yes, but it also has a strange kind of yellow. It’s like he’s working with the weirdness of the body, not just the surface. Check out the red of the bedclothes, laid on so thick, and the way he makes those deep folds. It’s like he’s digging into the paint, using it as a material to sculpt the shadows. It’s not just about color; it’s about the physicality of the paint itself. Those marks there, the way he’s used the brush, gives it a weight, an intensity, that's really something. There's something of the early Picasso in this work; the way he’s looking at the figure, and the rawness of the paint, reminds me of what Picasso was trying to do. Art is an ongoing exchange, a conversation across time, always embracing ambiguity.