Hills 1965

Horia Bernea painted this dreamy landscape, ‘Hills’, with oil paint, probably alla prima—wet on wet—and likely outside. I bet he had to work fast because the light can change so quickly, and maybe it started to rain. The paint is thick and juicy, and the green hills roll and tumble, with some dark smudges above. I wonder if those dark marks are storm clouds, or a building, or both? I feel like he wasn’t trying to copy nature, but, like, complete it. You know? Like, the painting feels more real than a picture of hills—the same way that memory feels more alive than a snapshot. And isn’t that funny? Painters always talk to each other, across time, and I wonder if Bernea knew the work of other landscape painters like Courbet? You can really see how artists borrow and remix ideas from each other. And that’s how painting keeps evolving. It's a back-and-forth, a conversation, a slow, gorgeous game of telephone.