Giocatori di carte (Amici all'osteria) 1957

Renato Guttuso made this painting of card players, or friends at the Osteria, with oil on canvas. It's a fiery scene of red, black, white, and yellow, with touches of blue, orange, and green, all pulled together with thick, visible brushstrokes. I can imagine Guttuso's process as he built up the layers, shifting the composition through trial and error. What was he thinking when he laid down that stroke of white, thick like cake frosting, on the back of the seated figure? Or the dark, almost angry lines of the figures' faces. It feels a little bit like the German Expressionists and a little bit like some of Picasso’s cubist figures, all rolled into one big feeling! Paintings like this are an embodied expression, embracing ambiguity. They allow for multiple interpretations, always open, always inspiring.