Houses 1962

Tove Jansson's 'Houses' is rendered with confident, broad strokes and a juicy color palette, really celebrating the joy of applying paint to canvas. You can almost feel her process, the energy of each stroke as she builds up this little world. Up close, the surfaces are alive with texture. Notice how the impasto creates depth and shadows, the thick paint of the orange house contrasting with the more transparent washes used for the sky. Look at that one bold stroke of deep red, anchoring the whole composition, like a tiny exclamation point. It's the kind of mark that says, "I'm here, I'm real, I'm paint!" The expressive brushwork reminds me of Joan Mitchell's abstract landscapes, where the emotional intensity comes through the physicality of the paint. Jansson embraces the ambiguities that make art so endlessly fascinating, where a house is not just a house, but a feeling, a memory, a moment captured in time.