Samarkand 1921

Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin made 'Samarkand' using oil paints, maybe in the early 1900s, and the colours are muted, like faded memories. I imagine Petrov-Vodkin, squinting in the Samarkand light, trying to make sense of what he sees, how it all fits together. He lays down these overlapping shapes and colours that almost make a picture, but not quite. It feels like he's trying to catch the essence of a place and time, rather than just copying what's in front of him. The paint is thin, washy, like watercolour almost, which gives everything a soft focus, a dreamlike quality. See how the faces aren’t really ‘finished’— they're more like impressions, so we can project our own ideas of identity onto them. And that big tree, it's not just a tree, it's a presence, a silent witness to the scene. Petrov-Vodkin is in conversation with artists like Matisse and Derain, who were also trying to find new ways of seeing and representing the world. Painting, really, is a way of thinking out loud, a process of trying to understand ourselves and the world around us.