Tea Party 1903

Andrei Ryabushkin made this painting, called Tea Party, sometime in the late 19th or early 20th century. What strikes me is Ryabushkin’s commitment to the act of painting itself. He’s clearly not interested in hiding the process, instead, he wants us to see each brushstroke, each decision he made along the way. The color palette is mostly muted tones, except for these jolts of vivid color. That amazing emerald green, the bright orange, and the shocking pink scarf. The paint isn’t overworked; it’s applied with a certain looseness that gives the scene an immediacy. It's as if Ryabushkin captured a fleeting moment in time, a pause during a meal, with each figure lost in their own thoughts. Look at the mark-making in the background. The figures there are barely suggested, they are ghostly observers in the theatre of the dinner table. Ryabushkin reminds me of other artists like Paula Modersohn-Becker, in the way he balances an attention to the everyday with something deeper, something more mysterious. His paintings invite us to slow down, to see the world with fresh eyes, and to find beauty in the unexpected.