Mistra 1921

Alexis Gritchenko’s ‘Mistra’ is a landscape painting, likely rendered in oil or gouache, with a palette that feels both earthy and airy. I imagine Gritchenko layering those cool blues and greens, juxtaposed with warmer browns, like building up a world. Those brushstrokes are like individual thoughts, aren't they? Little facets of the artist’s perception, all coming together to form a cohesive whole. The paint looks quite thin here, almost watery in places, which gives the whole composition a sense of lightness, as if the landscape is breathing. I wonder if Gritchenko was thinking about Cezanne's landscapes here with his approach to form and color. That vertical brushstroke of dark blue right there in the middle, it's so confident, so deliberate. It carves out space and anchors the composition, while still allowing the eye to wander. It reminds me that making paintings is an act of discovery, of finding our way through the messiness of perception and distilling it into something meaningful. Painting is about this ongoing dialogue across time, where we painters keep riffing on each other’s ideas and inspiring new ways of seeing.