Begonias and Gardenias 1991

Avigdor Arikha captured these Begonias and Gardenias in thick strokes of dark green and purple paint. I'm thinking about the artist, maybe in his studio, looking at these potted plants, trying to figure out how to translate what he's seeing into something on the canvas. I can almost feel the artist's frustration and excitement, trying to capture the way the leaves curl and twist. Look at how he's used the brush to create texture, to give us a sense of the plant's surface and form. It's like he's wrestling with the paint, trying to get it to do what he wants. See the way the leaves on the right-hand side burst out of the pot, almost like they are reaching for something beyond the frame. And that's the thing about painting: it's an ongoing conversation, artists responding to what they see, what they feel, and what other artists have done before them. It is all there, at once, on the canvas.