Palestine 1935

Konstantin Gorbatov made this painting, ‘Palestine,’ in 1935, with oils on canvas. Look at how he's applied the paint, thick dabs of color laid side by side, creating a shimmering effect of light on water. It’s like he's building the image, brick by brick, with strokes of color. I love how the materiality of the paint contributes to the image as a whole. The reflections of the buildings in the water are not just depicted but constructed out of the same stuff as the buildings themselves. Notice the way the brushstrokes in the water ripple and vibrate, suggesting movement and depth, but also the viscosity and weight of the paint. It's a reminder that painting is always a dance between illusion and reality. This reminds me of the Venetian scenes of someone like John Singer Sargent, but with a distinctly Russian sensibility. Like Sargent, Gorbatov uses light and color to capture the beauty and atmosphere of a place, but there is something more subdued, more melancholy. It's like he's not just painting a picture but also trying to capture a feeling, a memory, a sense of loss.