Alide Asmuse portree 1912 - 1913

Konrad Mägi painted ‘Alide Asmuse portree’ with oils, and what strikes me is the way that Mägi approaches colour. He’s not trying to imitate reality; it’s more like he’s using colour to build an emotional landscape. It's like a mosaic. Look at her cloak: a carnival of blues, reds, and greens, all these little dashes coming together. I get the feeling that he built the painting from the ground up, layer by layer. It's like he's thinking through the paint itself. The way the colour accumulates, it's like a record of his looking, his thinking, his feeling. And then there’s the way he’s handled the surface, it's kind of rough, like he's not trying to smooth things over. Instead, he's leaving traces of his process. It reminds me a bit of Van Gogh, but with its own distinct sensibility. It's not just about what's depicted; it's about the act of painting itself.