Grapes 1936

Zinaida Serebriakova painted ‘Grapes’ with oil on canvas at some point in the twentieth century. Look at these marks! There’s a deep lushness and vibrancy in the dark blues and purples of the grapes. I can just imagine Zinaida, standing there, in front of the fruit, trying to find the balance between the darks and the lights, almost as if wrestling with form itself. You can see how she’s built up the layers, one on top of another, as if she's feeling her way through the bunches. The leaves have a kind of energetic curl to them, a lively green against the subdued ground, very different to the rotund grapes. That shadow behind makes me think of other painters like Manet. It’s like she's responding to a whole history of painting, even as she's making something totally fresh and new. I love the way she embraces the messiness of painting. It feels so alive, like she's inviting us to share in her looking, her seeing.