Still Life. Peaches. 1919

Pyotr Konchalovsky made this painting, Still Life. Peaches., with oil on canvas. Look at these peaches, sitting in a basket lined with leaves, all painted with thick strokes of colour. You can imagine Konchalovsky standing there, brush in hand, really looking, trying to catch the weight of the fruit, the way the light hits the fuzzy skin. There's this looseness and a directness to the paint application. I bet Konchalovsky was thinking about Cezanne. He probably wanted to capture the way light makes the surface seem to shimmer, and the way colour gives shape to everything, as he applied layer upon layer of pigment, each brushstroke seems alive. It makes me think of the way one painter builds on the ideas of another, how artists are always looking at what came before, adding their own spin, and carrying the conversation forward.