Village 1918

Boris Grigoriev made this painting, Village, with oil on canvas; its exact date remains a mystery, but it's a window into a place and time. I can imagine Grigoriev, brush in hand, wrestling with the weight of his own observations. There’s a push and pull between structure and looseness, particularly around the central figure. Her face is carefully delineated with harsh light and shade, but all around her the village seems to sway and tilt. The paint is applied in chunky strokes, almost like the scene is about to fall apart, the colors are drab but so full of life. Look at the blue-grey shadows which bring forward the sallow yellows and pinks. There’s something really moving about the way painters like Grigoriev captured their surroundings with the same tools and vision as, say, Cezanne, who painted quite different scenes. This picture is a reminder that painting is always a dialogue, a conversation between artists across time. Each one is in their own village.