Paris 1907

Konstantin Alexeevich Korovin painted this scene of Paris using oil on canvas. The palette is a dance between dark blues and browns, punctuated by pops of white and yellow. Imagine standing there with Korovin, brush in hand, trying to capture the ephemeral buzz of a Parisian night. See how he laid down those strokes, thick and juicy, to conjure up the feeling of the city's vibrant chaos? I bet he was right there, en plein air, feeling the cool evening air. Check out how a flurry of marks become people, their forms barely there, yet full of movement. It reminds me of Whistler's nocturnes, or maybe even some of Gerhard Richter's blurry photos-turned-paintings. There is a lineage of painterly seeing, each artist riffing off what came before, each mark building on another's vision. Paintings like this remind us that seeing is always an act of translation, a way of feeling our way through the world.