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000120 Artemis Melissarato, Landscape with trees, n.d., oil on cardboard, 28 × 35 cm

Artemis Melissarato was mainly engaged in landscape painting. She worked on conventional subjects (clumps of trees, groves, country roads, etc.) but in an expressionistic way. In this painting—probably executed from memory and not based on an actual landscape—the subject is three trees. An abstract zone on the first level serves as an introduction; the three large trunks and their foliage occupy almost two-thirds of the composition, while the sky is compressed in the upper section. The drawing is simple, rudimentary, as the painter's main means of expression is rich, embossed color, worked in violent, visible brushstrokes. What is interesting about the work is that the representation is limited to a tonal range that includes exclusively warm colours: reds, brick reds and browns. Only in the sky, a small off-white area gives the impression of a light source from above. The composition seems to be, in fact, a metaphysical perception of the forest, of nature, as a force of creation.