Holiday, Mission Beach 1938

Charles Reiffel made Holiday, Mission Beach with oil on canvas. The whole thing is in motion, right? Masses of people at leisure, with parasols like polka dots, all done with these juicy brushstrokes. You can imagine Reiffel right there, trying to capture the essence of the day, dabbing and swirling with his brush. The materiality of the paint adds another layer to the story. It's not just an image of a beach, but a record of the artist's physical engagement with his materials. I bet he kept coming back to it, adding layers, scraping some off, until it felt right. It's a conversation, you know, between the artist and the canvas. I think of Bonnard, Vuillard, all those late 19th, early 20th-century painters wrestling with how to capture life, not just represent it. We are all in conversation, across time and place.