By the Lake 1933

Konstantin Gorbatov built this landscape by the lake with oil paint, sometime in the first half of the 20th century. The strokes are broad, gestural, and loaded with paint, especially the golden ochre colour of the cliffs, which looks almost as if it has been applied with a palette knife. I like to think about what it might have been like for Gorbatov to create this. It looks like he has worked fast, and captured a moment. He may have been thinking about the relationship between man and nature. I wonder if he saw himself in one of those figures walking by the water, and was he thinking about his own journey? It seems so! The application of the paint is loose and free, yet it describes the scene with confidence and with a light, airy touch. Paintings like this remind me that artists are always in conversation with each other, across time and space, exchanging ideas and inspiring each other’s creativity. Painting is a form of embodied expression, and embraces ambiguity, which allows for multiple interpretations, rather than just one fixed reading.