Paris, La Seine 1967

Włodzimierz Zakrzewski made this painting of the Seine in Paris on a canvas about this big, using a brush and a lot of juicy paint. The thing that grabs me is how Zakrzewski builds up the image with these little slabs of color, almost like he's constructing the scene rather than just painting it. Look at the way he renders the water – these horizontal strokes of blues and grays, layered one on top of the other. There's a real physicality to it, a sense of the water moving and reflecting the light. And the buildings in the background, they're not precise renderings, but more like impressions, built up with thick, gestural marks. It reminds me a little of Courbet, that same love for the materiality of paint, that same desire to capture the world in all its messy, imperfect glory. But Zakrzewski has his own voice, his own way of seeing. And that’s what makes it so special, right?