At Lake Balaton 1981

Maria Bozoky made this watercolour, At Lake Balaton, somewhere in Hungary. I imagine her with a small set of paints, and a brush loaded with blue pigment, conjuring up the water, the sky, and the distant hills. See how the marks are sort of scribbly and free? It feels like she’s trying to capture the essence of the place rather than a precise rendering. I can imagine her outside, trying to capture the light. Those two benches in the foreground, they’re like an invitation to sit and contemplate the view with her. The spontaneity of the brushstrokes almost makes the scene tremble with life. It’s like she's captured a moment in time, a fleeting impression, but it has the universal quality of memory. Painters are always in conversation with each other, even across generations, and Bozoky here is speaking the language of feeling, a language only painting can truly articulate.