Ivan the Terrible 1903

Andrei Ryabushkin made this painting, Ivan the Terrible, with oil on canvas. It's like peering into a murky dream, isn't it? Ryabushkin's brushstrokes are broad and confident, laying down swathes of color like he's wrestling with the image. The palette is dark, full of shadowy reds and greens, but punctuated by that ghostly figure, a splash of stark light amid the gloom. You can almost feel the weight of the artist's hand as he dragged the paint across the canvas. I wonder, was he trying to conjure a feeling, to unearth a truth about Ivan, or to just simply see what the paint would do? That extended bony finger, for instance, it says so much with so little. It reminds me of some Goya paintings, where everything's a bit off-kilter, like a memory half-recalled. In painting like this, it is easy to sense the artist's struggle and their victory to leave behind a piece of something unresolved. But that's what makes it so good, right?