Portrait of a Man 1930 - 1944

Arnold Peter Weisz-Kubínčan made this *Portrait of a Man* using colored pencils. I really feel the surface in this piece; the tooth of the paper comes through the marks. It's like Weisz-Kubínčan is feeling around for this guy's face with color. He's laying down these strokes that are full of doubt and discovery. Look closely, and you'll see how the lines aren't just descriptive; they're also emotional. The green and blue around the face, it gives the whole thing this otherworldly, melancholy vibe. It reminds me of some of the drawings of Marsden Hartley, that same sort of searching for something beyond the surface, a quest for some inner truth. You can see that artmaking is an ongoing conversation between artists, where meaning isn’t fixed. There's room for feeling and thinking in all its beautiful, messy ambiguity.