Giocatori di carte (Amici all'osteria) 1957

Renato Guttuso conjured this scene of card players in an Italian tavern with oil on canvas. I love the immediacy of his brushstrokes. The painting is built up with thick layers, impasto of color. Look at that intense red that bleeds into almost every part of the image. It's visceral, like a beating heart. And how the figures emerge, or almost emerge, from the ground, the atmosphere. It’s a messy, physical process, this painting. See how the white jacket seems to be dissolving, or solidifying? The red chair legs beneath it are practically vibrating with color. I’m reminded of how Francis Bacon also used color to suggest movement. Guttuso is not trying to create an illusion, but instead capture a feeling, an experience. The result is pure emotion rendered through color and gesture, embracing the joyful ambiguity of life.