The Drunk Man 1914

Alberto Magnelli painted ‘The Drunk Man’ with oil on canvas, and the way he’s laid down the paint, it’s like he's building up an image, piece by piece. The textures here are doing a lot of the talking, aren't they? Magnelli isn't trying to hide anything, the paint is pretty thin in places and there are obvious brushstrokes, especially in that golden jacket and, wow, in the face too. It's like he’s saying, "Hey, this is a painting, not reality." Look at the bottle he’s holding. It’s not just a bottle, it’s shapes and colours and lines and, together, they make a bottle. It’s like Picasso but somehow, Magnelli is more playful. This feels like a conversation between artists, a shared language of paint and form that keeps evolving. There’s no one ‘right’ way to see this, or any artwork really, and that's the fun of it.