Portrait of photographer M.A. Sherling 1918

Jury Annenkov painted this intriguing portrait of photographer M.A. Sherling with what looks like gouache or tempera, building up the image with lots of small, precise marks. There's real care in his process. What strikes me most is the surface texture. Annenkov coaxes a sense of volume from the flat picture plane. The face emerges through these different planes of color, a study in geometry. Even the Eiffel Tower is tucked back there, like a memory! The shadows have sharp edges, and the light is almost palpable. Check out the lightbulb above, it's like a tiny sun that both illuminates and casts everything into deeper relief. This painting reminds me of Picasso's portrait of Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler, where the subject is also broken down into planes and angles. Both artists invite us to see beyond the surface, to engage in a kind of visual puzzle where the act of looking becomes a process of discovery. Art is about dialogue across time, isn't it? Embracing ambiguity, not pinning things down.