Passage 1913

Giorgio Morandi painted this landscape, Passage, with oils, and its dreamy quality makes me think about what we see versus what we feel. The brushstrokes are these deliberate dashes of color that build up a scene, but it’s not about a perfect representation. Look at the way the blues and greens kind of vibrate together in the foliage on either side of the path. It’s like he’s not just painting trees and bushes, but also the feeling of being enveloped by them, that sun-drenched haze when you’re walking on a hot day. And the road itself? It’s almost blindingly bright, a white-hot passage leading somewhere unknown. Morandi is often compared to Cézanne, and you can see it here in the way he breaks down the landscape into these essential forms and colors. But while Cézanne was all about structure, Morandi brings a gentle, almost meditative quality to his work. He reminds us that painting isn't just about what's on the canvas, but also about how we see, how we feel, and where we're going.