The Bersaglieri by Luks, George

George Luks painted "The Bersaglieri" in 1918, just as World War I ended. It's a victory parade seen through the eyes of an Ashcan School realist: a painter who preferred the energy of the street to the stillness of the studio.

Look at the soldier's uniform. It isn't painted. It's a slash of dark brown oil, dragged across the canvas in a single, confident gesture. Luks doesn't describe fabric or buttons; he describes the blur of a man in motion. The faces in the crowd are just as loose: an eye socket is a dab, a mouth is a smudge. He gives you just enough to complete the picture yourself.

The trick is in what he shows you clearly. The Italian tricolor flag is sharp. The rifles are a crisp diagonal. By locking these hard edges in a sea of loose brushwork, Luks makes the blur feel like disciplined, collective movement, not a mistake. The energy is in the paint itself.

It's a reminder that sometimes the best way to show a crowd is to stop trying to draw every face. What does the looseness of the paint make you feel about these soldiers?