O homem de sete cores 1916

Anita Malfatti made this drawing, O homem de sete cores, with pastel or crayon, laying down colour in hatched strokes that define the planes of the figure’s muscles and the surrounding landscape of giant leaves and curious flowers. What I really love here is the way the coloured lines sit on the surface; they remind me of those colouring books where you scratch away the black to reveal the colour underneath. She's not trying to blend or hide anything. The texture is the message. The way the strokes build up these forms, especially around the neck and shoulders, gives him real presence. He's a figure of colour, literally built from it. Malfatti, like many artists of her time, was wrestling with how to bring new ideas about colour and form into her own work, influenced by the European avant-garde. But it’s never just imitation, right? It's a conversation, a pushing and pulling, that makes art so alive.