The Readers 1931

Alberto Magnelli’s 'The Readers' is a painting of flat shapes, made with oils sometime in the early to mid twentieth century. The muted color palette, mostly browns and faded reds, gives the painting a kind of serious air, as if the artist is concerned with something of vital importance. Look at the figures themselves - the one on the left stands with a kind of confidence, while the other turns away. They’re rendered as geometric shapes, but there’s still a hint of volume, a sense of mass. It's like they’re caught between abstraction and figuration. Notice the brushstrokes, visible and direct - there's a real sense of the artist's hand in the making of this piece. Magnelli was a part of that generation of European painters grappling with cubism, with representation, and with inventing an entirely new visual language. You can see the influence of artists like Léger here, in the reduced palette and hard, mechanical edges. But there's also something unique - a playfulness, maybe? It’s like he’s saying, "Here’s what I see, and you can see it too, if you just look closely enough."