Roses on a Window Sill, Gurzuf 1917

Konstantin Alexeevich Korovin painted "Roses on a Window Sill, Gurzuf" with oil, and with such confident strokes! You get the sense he wasn't fussing too much, and that's what gives it its charm. Check out the way the light hits those roses. Thick dabs of paint, right? Red, white, a little orange – he’s not trying to make them perfect, just capturing a feeling, an impression. And the window itself, with those cool blues and violets, it’s like a stage set for the roses. The brushwork is so physical, you can almost feel Korovin’s hand moving across the canvas. There's one mark there in the top right, a quick dab of green and white, totally conveys the glow of the moon through the dark sky. Korovin reminds me a bit of Manet, in the way he's not afraid to leave things a little rough around the edges. It's a reminder that art is as much about the process as it is about the final product. It’s a conversation, a back-and-forth between the artist and the canvas, and it's never really finished.