Mother and child 1927

Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin painted this Mother and Child, and what strikes me is how he's working with color and form, not trying to trick us into seeing reality, but showing us a version of it that's all his own. It's honest. There’s this beautiful flatness to the painting, a kind of deliberate awkwardness in the way the figures are rendered. Look at the mother's face. It's like he’s building it up with these planes of color, pinks and reds and browns all layered together. And then the baby, almost doll-like, but with a certain weight, a presence. It’s not about making a perfect representation, but about capturing something deeper, a feeling, an essence. The brushstrokes are visible, the surface is textured. I’m reminded a bit of Cézanne, the way he broke down forms into these geometric shapes. But Petrov-Vodkin brings something else, a kind of Russian soulfulness, a sense of melancholy and tenderness all at once. It’s a reminder that painting isn’t about answers, but about questions.