Odpočinok 1940

Editor: This is "Odpo\u010dinok," painted in 1940 by Arnold Peter Weisz-Kub\u00edn\u010dan, crafted with oil paint. It's got this very...turbulent feeling, doesn't it? The figures are nestled among angular, almost aggressive shapes. I'm curious, what jumps out at you when you look at it? Curator: You know, it strikes me as a deeply internal landscape, almost a memory folding in on itself. Look at the sky—that swirling red sun, practically throbbing with energy. Do you think it could be portraying the sun? Perhaps it is not necessarily the visual likeness of the sun that he intends us to see, but the feeling, the raw sensation, almost synesthetic in its translation onto the canvas? Editor: I hadn’t thought of it that way, more of like an external experience and natural. So you’re seeing something beyond the literal figures? Curator: Oh, absolutely. Kub\u00edn\u010dan was working during a time of immense turmoil, with shadows that stretched far across Europe; so, it is very tempting for the art analyst to impose such social elements in it, and it certainly comes across, for me at least. Maybe the figures aren't so much at rest as they are hunkered down, sheltering from something we can't quite see. How do the colours play to that notion, in your eye? Editor: That does shift things…I guess that rawness I felt initially now has a kind of fearful undercurrent to it, or a forced hope and energy, if that makes any sense at all? And those jarring colours might actually show distress now, rather than being Fauvist like at first glance. Curator: Precisely! It's as if the painting itself is sighing, or even shouting. Art very often reveals itself as a living breathing entity when put under pressure by historical scrutiny, and I have to say that that process has not failed us on this piece. Editor: I completely see what you mean. I never really noticed the extent of all of this and appreciate what this reveals for the period, and with consideration, will likely reflect much about myself when looking at the piece on my own next time.