By the Campfire 1935 - 1944

Arnold Peter Weisz-Kubínčan made this painting, By the Campfire, with oil paint in an unknown year. It's a scene built from brushstrokes that are confident, almost brutal, laid down with real urgency. You can tell artmaking for Weisz-Kubínčan was less about accuracy and more about feeling. The texture is key; it's not smooth or blended, which gives it this raw, immediate energy. The paint looks pretty thick in places. It's like he wanted you to see the physicality of applying paint. Note the way he renders the campfire. He uses these stabs of reds and oranges that feel chaotic, hot, dangerous. And then he surrounds that with cooler greens and blues which makes it more intense. The mark making is really interesting here. Look at the strokes used to create the figure on the right, how the artist uses long vertical lines to create the legs and torso, and then a dab of paint for the face. It reminds me a little of Kirchner or even Beckmann, but with something rawer and more immediate. Weisz-Kubínčan isn't trying to please or fit in. He’s just laying it all out there. It is this honesty that makes the work so compelling.