Douro 1999

Julio Resende made 'Douro' in 1989 with crayon, I think. Look at the sweeping strokes of green, yellow, and blue. Imagine Resende outside, squinting, with his paper on his knee, scribbling with a crayon. The drawing is a quick, gestural landscape, barely-there figures, all built up from simple marks. I wonder what Resende was thinking when he made this. It's so minimal, like he's trying to capture just the feeling of a place. Like Cy Twombly, he uses line in such a way that it feels like writing. See how the scribbled lines almost become a kind of shorthand for objects and forms, translating a visual scene into a set of marks? There’s a conversation happening between artists all the time. Resende’s 'Douro' speaks to all of us. It’s as if he’s saying, “Here’s what I saw, here’s how I felt. Now, what do you see?”