Clown Playing the Violin 1940

Cyprián Majerník made this painting of a Clown Playing the Violin without a known date, and you can see how the paint has been applied in distinct strokes with a loaded brush, like each mark is a decision, laid bare. There's a real material presence here, the way the colours blend, creating a kind of earthy, almost melancholic, atmosphere. Look at the clown’s face, how the highlights on his nose and around his eyes aren't blended. It's like the artist is saying, “Here it is, the paint, the gesture, the artifice.” This rawness, the kind of vulnerability of the medium, that makes it sing. It brings to mind painters like Rouault or Soutine, with their expressive distortions and thick impasto, but Majerník has his own, very particular, voice. Ultimately, this painting, like any good work of art, is more about the questions it asks than the answers it gives. What is it to be a clown, what is performance, what is the relationship between joy and sorrow? It’s all there, swimming in the paint.