Cloudy 1975

Veniamin Kremer, a painter born at the turn of the last century, made this small landscape painting titled ‘Cloudy’ sometime during his career. The paint is applied thinly, almost tentatively, in muted greens and browns. You can feel the melancholy of the cloudy day. The brushstrokes are soft and blended. They evoke the quiet stillness of the scene. I wonder, did he begin with a simple sketch of the horizon, then build up the forms of the buildings, field and trees? I imagine Kremer standing before his subject, squinting slightly as he mixes his colors, trying to capture the essence of the light. You see that sapling in the foreground? The painterly marks suggest a gentle swaying in the breeze, adding a touch of animation to the otherwise still landscape. He’s not trying to make a photorealistic copy of the landscape, but to convey the feeling of a place. Artists are always in conversation. Like Chardin’s humble still lives, Kremer’s painting reminds us that beauty can be found in the most ordinary of subjects.