Russia. Festival 1931

Konstantin Korovin captured this festival scene in Russia with watercolor on paper. It's a light-filled painting, full of brushy strokes of brown, white, and red. I can imagine Korovin standing in the snow, hurrying to capture the fleeting moment of joy and movement. The paint looks thin and watery, almost like he's sketching with color. Look at the way he's suggested the figures—they're not precisely defined, but the feeling of the crowd is definitely there. Korovin was an impressionist, but he was also Russian; you can see the influence of both in his work. There is a sense of narrative, a sense of place, and, above all, a sense of human experience. It reminds me of the work of other artists, like Bonnard, who captured the everyday with such feeling. I always think that artists are in conversation with each other, across time and space. They're all trying to figure out how to make sense of the world, how to capture it, and how to share it. And in the end, that's what art is all about.