Winter 1914

Konstantin Gorbatov made this oil on canvas painting of a winter scene, sometime around 1910. Look at how he's built up the snow, not just in drifts over the roofs and in the foreground, but also clinging to the branches of the trees. The painting feels like a process of accumulation, layer upon layer. There's something about the way Gorbatov handles paint that reminds me of Impressionism, but with a certain solidity and a touch of melancholy. See how the brushstrokes create texture, giving a real sense of the cold and the weight of the snow? The palette is muted, mostly whites, grays, and browns, but there are also these hits of warmth, like the ochre of the buildings and the bright red figures walking in the foreground. The bare trees, their forms echoed in the brushstrokes, frame the scene and draw your eye toward the village in the background. It makes me think of other Russian landscape painters, like Isaac Levitan, who found ways to convey both the beauty and the harshness of the Russian countryside. In the end, art isn't about answers. It's about embracing ambiguity.