Landscape from Baia Mare 1937

Petre Abrudan’s ‘Landscape from Baia Mare’ seems to come from a place of joyful observation. The thick vertical marks of the trees in the foreground establish the painting, whilst short diagonal strokes depict the background. It’s like Abrudan is building the landscape with colored blocks. I imagine he was thinking about how to best capture a sense of place, not just what he saw but how it felt to be there, in that moment. The paint is applied directly and without fuss – a very physical, intuitive, and embodied response to the world. It reminds me of the work of other landscape painters such as Maurice de Vlaminck, who approached the landscape with a similar freedom. There is a sense that artists are in an ongoing conversation across time, each building on the ideas and innovations of those who came before. Ambiguity is important – a painting can hold multiple meanings, and that’s what makes it so exciting.