Capri motiiv 1921 - 1922

Konrad Mägi must have stood somewhere high up to make this painting of Capri, maybe with the wind in his hair. You can feel the dry sun beating down, it’s all ochre and olive and dusty pink. The brushstrokes are really interesting – they’re not blended, but laid on top of each other, building up this whole scene out of separate marks. You can see the architecture rising up, a stack of cubes, and I wonder if he built it up like that in the studio, step by step. I can imagine him thinking, "Okay, now I need to get that shadow in, and then that little flash of light on the rooftop". Painting is a funny thing, isn't it? It’s all about trying to capture something real, but you’re only ever using these fake materials, pushing them around, until something emerges. The painter is a bit of a magician, like that.