Landscape with River 1917

Konstantin Gorbatov made this landscape with river, in oil, sometime around the early twentieth century. I’m interested in how a painting like this makes you think about process: it's not just about the end result, but about the journey of making. The texture here is palpable; you can almost feel the roughness of the brushstrokes, especially in the trees. The paint's applied with such visible energy, creating a surface that vibrates. The colours are muted, mostly greys and browns, but there are these little sparks of yellow and green that pop out. See that one little dash of bright yellow, right in the centre of the painting on the centre tree? That's a tiny burst of hope amid the grey, like a little glitch in the system. You can see something of the influence of Impressionism, but also something unique, a kind of personal expression. It reminds me a bit of Corot in his more moody moments, where it's not about capturing a scene perfectly but about capturing a feeling, and that’s the ongoing conversation throughout art history: how do we make something that feels true?