Cucumber Harvesting 1966

Tetyana Yablonska captured this cucumber harvest with paint and canvas; it feels summery and optimistic. I imagine her, squinting in the sun, trying to capture the light as it bounces off those broad, bright leaves. There’s a real pleasure in the everyday here. Look at how Yablonska renders the field—it's a tapestry of greens and blues. You can almost smell the earth and the cucumbers. And those women, bending and reaching—I wonder what they're thinking about as they work, filling those baskets with prickly green fruit. The artist must have thought about painting as labor too; it's physical work to apply paint to canvas, each brushstroke a deliberate act. The way she’s rendered their aprons and headscarves gives them dignity. Painting is, in the end, an act of making—like harvesting—and Yablonska reminds us of that, connecting art to the world of labor and life.