Realism 1952

Fernando García Ponce painted this still life, ‘Realism,’ with oils on board. Look at the way he's built up these forms from thin washes of color. He’s working wet-on-wet, pulling and pushing the paint around. I wonder what it was like for García Ponce, setting up these objects, and then trying to record them. The rough wooden bowl, that blue glass bottle, and a bulb of garlic in a mortar. They look so ordinary! But the artist’s eye transforms them. It’s as if he’s saying, “Hey, look at this.” I see the influence of artists like Cézanne, who made paintings from carefully observed and considered arrangements. There's a conversation happening here, across decades, between artists, about how we see the world, and what we can make from it. The folds in the cloth are described with rapid, broken strokes of grey. It’s so humble, and so beautiful.