The Lunatic at Syracuse 1930

Istvan Farkas made this painting, The Lunatic at Syracuse, with brushes and pigment, of course. Looking at that palette of browns, creams, and muted yellows, I can imagine him building up the paint in layers, figuring out the composition as he went. I wonder what he was thinking, out there on the edge of Syracuse, or in his studio dreaming of the place, of Sicily. Is that Mount Etna smoking in the background? Look at how the figure’s arm is outstretched—is he madly conducting the landscape? I see a worker with a rake, maybe tending the fields that fade off into the distance, a field that runs alongside a lone building that sits baking in the sun. The paint is thinly applied but full of feeling. I think of Munch and his expressionist landscapes, but with a warmer, sunnier disposition, even if the guy is a supposed lunatic. In any case, painters are always responding to one another, across time and place. It’s like one big conversation about how to see and how to feel. And this painting has plenty of both.