Still Life with Watermelon 1932

George Bouzianis made this beautiful, delicate, watercolour ‘Still Life with Watermelon’ sometime in the early to mid- twentieth century, I imagine. The wispy washes feel fresh, full of light, and maybe heat. I wonder what it was like, sitting there, in front of the objects, carefully building up the colours and forms, wet on wet, letting the colours bleed. Look at that juicy wedge of watermelon, seeds scattered around, with just the right amount of pink and green. The plate it’s sitting on is a loose series of looping lines that both contain and don’t quite contain the fruit. What I love most about this painting is its tentative, searching quality. Bouzianis is not trying to nail down a perfect representation of reality but is instead exploring the sheer pleasure of looking and painting, playing with the slippery relationship between perception and expression. This is what Cezanne was doing, and, for that matter, what painters are still doing. The process is an ongoing conversation across time, inspiring one another’s creativity.