Landscape at Dusk 1931

Istvan Farkas made this painting, Landscape at Dusk, with oil on canvas. It feels like he was wrestling with it. The colours are muted – burnt orange, inky blue, and earth tones – and you can feel the texture of the paint, built up in layers. I can imagine Farkas standing before the canvas, brush in hand, trying to capture the essence of a memory. Maybe he was thinking about a place he knew well, or a feeling that settled on him at a particular time of day. Look how the road in the foreground is built up with ochre and sienna. There’s a real physicality to the way he’s rendered it, as if he’s trying to ground the scene in something tangible. This landscape feels like a space for introspection, which connects him to other painters like, say, Vilhelm Hammershøi. I feel like artists are always building on what’s come before, riffing off each other’s ideas, even across time. It’s a reminder that painting isn’t about answers, but about embracing uncertainty.