Mediterranee 1952 - 1953

Nicolas de Staël made this lithograph, Mediterranee, with broad swathes of colour like red, blue, pink, tan, and black, forming an almost architectural landscape. I can imagine him wrestling with this image, pushing these colours around, trying to get them just right. The surface reads as a back-and-forth, of painting and wiping away—searching. I wonder, was he looking out at the Mediterranean sea? I feel that sense of place, but also the feeling of being in the studio, struggling with the materiality of paint. That drip of red paint—that's my favourite bit! It’s like a little rebellion against the rest of the composition. De Staël’s a bit like Guston, playing with figuration and abstraction. You see him trying to find a balance between representation and pure form. Painting’s a conversation, and these artists are always in dialogue, arguing and agreeing across time. It’s not about answers, but about keeping the questions alive, right?