Girl Icon 1936

Vajda Lajos made this painting, Girl Icon, using muted colors and simple forms. Can you imagine him, brush in hand, building up the image layer by layer? The surface has a kind of rough, chalky feel, like the painting is breathing. I wonder if he stepped back often to look at it, turning it this way and that, as he worked. The face in the painting looks like a mask, and I can imagine it's full of complex emotions, even though it's so simple. The vertical strokes underneath are like bars but also remind me of a dress or maybe a cage. The way he combines simple shapes with areas of detail reminds me of other modernist painters who were also playing with abstraction and representation at the same time. It’s almost like he’s building the image up from scratch, and in doing so, is questioning what it means to make an image. What do you think?