Cutting the rice 1939

Romualdo Locatelli made this painting, Cutting the Rice, with oil paint. The way the paint's applied, it's all about process, about capturing a moment. There's a kind of freedom, a looseness that makes it feel like a snapshot of a real scene. Look at the texture – it's thick in places, especially where the light hits the rice stalks. You can almost feel the roughness of the field, the warmth of the sun. The yellow, ochre, and brown hues dominate, creating this sense of abundance, of a landscape teeming with life. But it’s not just about the colors themselves, it’s about how they blend, how they’re layered, how they create depth and movement. Notice that patch of thicker paint just to the right of the young girl, how that catches the light. This reminds me of Van Gogh, in how he also found a way to express such emotion through the simple act of applying paint to canvas. It's art as an ongoing conversation, an invitation to see the world in new ways.