Card Players 1944

Cyprián Majerník’s painting, Card Players, is slathered on with luscious browns, greens, and creams, and you can almost feel the artist pushing the paint around, trying to get the light just right. It’s like Majerník is having a conversation, figuring out the relationships between these figures, the table, and the smoky haze of the room, all through the act of painting. I imagine he stepped back often, squinting, and then lunging forward to adjust a line or dab of color. The texture is amazing, thick in some spots, scraped thin in others, each mark carrying its own weight and intention. Look at how the brushstrokes curve and swirl, especially in the figures. The way Majerník models the forms reminds me of other artists like Daumier, who used a similar approach to capture the psychological depth of his subjects. It makes you think about how artists across time are wrestling with similar problems, using paint to make sense of the world and each other.