Company Passing a Bridge 1904

Editor: We’re looking at Tivadar Kosztka Csontvary’s "Company Passing a Bridge," painted in 1904. The whole scene feels kind of dreamlike to me. What's your take on this one? Curator: Dreamlike is a fantastic word for it! The entire canvas vibrates with a singular, almost hallucinatory light, don't you think? It is as if the painting wants to show you something...or *be* something, not necessarily replicate what's actually *out there*. Do you notice the way the colours pop, totally divorced from realistic rendering? Editor: Yes, it's less about perfectly capturing the scene and more about creating a feeling, right? The almost cartoonish people with the bridge behind… Curator: Exactly. There’s this inherent tension. He seems interested in both the Impressionistic style, which suggests immediacy and "en plein air," and then the expressive and bold way the work is presented. The intensity of the colors—the greens against the curious orange and yellow figures—they are a little jarring. I wonder if Csontvary intended it as a bit of a joke? The Expressionists took themselves so seriously sometimes. Editor: I see what you mean about the colors creating tension, but also that sort of balance…It makes you look deeper. Like there are two different moods, light and playful and slightly brooding and uncertain at the same time. I like that. Curator: Yes, there's an incredible complexity simmering just beneath the surface here. I like to think that paintings sometimes choose us as much as we choose them, maybe it saw something in us.