1919. Alarm 1934

Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin’s 'Alarm', painted in 1919, offers a slice of life rendered in muted pinks, reds, and blues. I’m looking at the dad, who seems to be blocking out the light from a window. You wonder what that might have been like, being him, feeling the weight of responsibility. The newspaper on the table tells a story, but so does the kid’s expression, and the baby sleeping soundly in the bed. There's something so solid about the surface, like the paint has been built up, layer upon layer. What I love is how Petrov-Vodkin lets the mundane and the extraordinary sit side by side. Like, what’s scarier than the alarm of war entering a domestic space? It reminds me a little of what Marsden Hartley was doing in those years. Artists, you know, we're always in conversation with each other, even across time, picking up on each other's cues, riffing on each other's ideas. Like, where do we learn to be artists in the first place? Anyway, this painting isn't just about what's happening, but about the way we see it. Which is always open to interpretation.