Пейзаж с рекой и дорогой 1853

Apollinary Goravsky, born in Belarus, made this landscape painting with oil on canvas. The artist is engaging with a longstanding tradition of painting, where the illusion of reality is rendered through thin layers of pigmented oil. Goravsky’s skill is evident in the way he captures the light and texture of the natural world. You can almost feel the humidity in the air and hear the gentle lapping of water against the shore. But, consider too that this highly specialized knowledge and practice was made possible by equally specialized systems of labor and material extraction. To create this, Goravsky would have used brushes made of animal hair, painstakingly set in quills, and pigments made of minerals extracted from the earth, each ground to a fine powder. This material reality is easily overlooked, but it’s crucial to understanding this kind of painting – and to challenging distinctions between art and craft.