Santo (St. Joseph) 1939

Carl O'Bergh painted this Santo – Saint Joseph – on a wooden board, and straight away you can see how the grain and texture of the wood becomes part of the image itself. It’s not covered up or disguised, but embraced as a part of the whole. I love the way the paint seems to soak into the wood, stained in places and more opaque in others, so the image feels almost like it’s emerging from the material itself. There’s a real contrast between the loose, fluid brushstrokes and the more defined lines that describe the figures, creating an interesting tension between representation and abstraction. Look at the way the red and yellow stripes of St. Joseph’s robe seem to flatten the image, almost like a pattern, while the details of his face and hands are more carefully rendered. O'Bergh, reminds me a little bit of Forrest Bess in the way he combined a visionary, outsider sensibility with a deep understanding of art history and painterly technique. Like Bess, O’Bergh invites us to look beyond the surface of things and to consider the deeper, more mysterious aspects of human experience.