On North Dvine.6 Postcard 1902

This postcard, “On North Dvine.6,” by Igor Grabar, captures a row of windmills in simple lines of brown, black and blue. I think about how, when looking at this, the artist was also looking, really looking, at the real thing. Imagine Grabar trying to capture the essence of these windmills. Did he sketch them quickly? Did he have to move fast before the light changed? Or maybe he really studied them, trying to figure out how the light hit those wooden structures. The windmills are not perfect, they tilt and lean in such an evocative, imperfect way. It makes me think about how we see the world and how we try to capture it, imperfectly, in art. Each mark, each line, is like a thought, a feeling, a moment in time captured on paper. And that's what painting is all about – it's a conversation across time and space, where we share our ways of seeing and feeling with each other.