Sand Mine (Igal) 1927

Vilmos Aba-Novak painted ‘Sand Mine’ with oil on canvas, using strokes that feel both vigorous and thoughtful. You can almost feel him shifting and building the image, letting it emerge, testing it, and then bringing it into focus. The creamy whites, the ochres, the earth tones! He’s not afraid of using a broad brush and letting the paint do its thing, splattering, smearing, but also defining shapes. I’m thinking about what it might have been like to stand in front of this scene – the way the buildings cluster, how they relate to the workers at the bottom – and how Aba-Novak, like other painters, might have wanted to catch a particular feeling in the air that day. That diagonal mark slashing across the middle – is that a road? A trick of light? It’s almost aggressive, and it really makes me think about what painting can do that photography can’t. Aba-Novak reminds me of other artists working to capture both external and internal realities, painters like Soutine or Kokoschka. We are all in this conversation together, trading and borrowing ideas across the ages. Painting embraces ambiguity, and this is what allows for multiple interpretations and meanings.