Moika. Three-arch bridge. 1931

Pyotr Konchalovsky made this watercolor of the Moika river and bridge, with all its muted greens and browns, no date given. You can almost feel the dampness in the air. I wonder, what was it like to stand there, on the bank, looking across the water as he painted? There’s a real softness to the way he captured the light on the buildings, so fleeting. The reflections in the water are so immediate. Look how loose and free the brushstrokes are, especially in the trees to the left. You can almost feel him dabbing at the paper, trying to capture the essence of the scene with just a few strokes. Did he have to work fast before the light changed? It reminds me a little of some of the early Impressionist landscapes. Artists are always looking at each other's work, even across different generations, thinking "How did they do that?" You can see them in conversation, across time. Painting is like that, an ongoing conversation between artists, each one building on what came before, trying to find their own way of seeing the world.