A Guide to the Earth, 1977

Erland Cullberg

Narrator: A Guide to the Earth by Erland Cullberg, from 1977

Let your eyes travel across the surface of the painting.

Choose one brushstroke and follow it with your gaze.

Now try to imagine what it might be like to paint that very stroke.

Erland Cullberg called himself an “over-painter”. Again and again, he painted over what he had already painted, adding new colours, shapes and figures.

Look closely at how the different layers of paint sit on top of one another — and how some seem to come through from underneath.

Cullberg kept working the canvas until something unexpected happened with the colour. Or until he found the feeling and expression he was looking for.

Now here’s a question for the two of you:
Take a guess. Which brushstroke do you think was the very last one Cullberg added to this painting?
And what does that brushstroke do to the feeling of the painting?


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