Imereti 1917

David Kakabadzé made this painting of Imereti, a region in Georgia, sometime in the first half of the 20th Century, though we don't know exactly when. The artist’s approach is all about structure. This is a very ordered landscape, with everything in its place. The surface has this cool, almost glazed quality, and you can see the way Kakabadzé layers the paint, building up these defined patches. Look at the way he renders the ancient ruins in the foreground, and how this relates to the many fields in the background, it’s like all of human history and activity is arranged into these neat, geometric blocks. There’s something a little unsettling about it, like a beautiful but slightly artificial stage set. Kakabadzé had been living in Paris in the 1920s, and you can see the influence of artists like Derain in the way he flattens the picture plane. Like much great art, the painting feels totally unique, but is clearly part of an ongoing conversation.