The old milkmaid 1917

Boris Grigoriev painted this old milkmaid, we don’t know when exactly, but there's a real process at work, a feeling that he’s building the image up bit by bit, not trying to hide the brushstrokes. The colours are earthy, but with these surprising pops of redness in the milkmaid’s skin and clothing, and this almost luminous blue in the cow’s eye. The paint itself looks pretty thin, almost like a stain in places, which gives the whole thing a kind of raw, exposed feeling. Take a look at the milkmaid’s hands - the way the veins are mapped out, it’s so direct and unvarnished. It’s like Grigoriev is saying, here’s the reality, no sugar-coating. Grigoriev’s work is often about these kinds of stark, unromantic portrayals of rural life. He's a bit like Paula Modersohn-Becker, who was also trying to find a new way of representing the lives of ordinary people, but with a real directness. For Grigoriev, art wasn’t about beauty in the traditional sense, but about truth, even if that truth was a bit harsh and uncomfortable.