Mountain Landscape 1943

David Burliuk made this watercolor painting, Mountain Landscape, sometime in his life, and it’s now held in a private collection. Look at the mountain itself, how it's rendered not in static browns and greens, but with blues, pinks, yellows - a whole symphony of color. Burliuk is showing us how to see, how to find the unexpected hues in the everyday. The paint is thin and watery, allowed to bleed and blend, embracing the unpredictable nature of the medium. There is a beautiful tension between control and chance. I’m drawn to the splattering of blue across the mountain's peak – it's like the mountain itself is exhaling, breathing out the sky. For me, it suggests an ongoing conversation, a dance between what we think we know and what we're invited to discover. Like with Milton Avery, there is a simplification of form here, a reduction to essentials that opens up a world of feeling and possibility. The painting isn’t just a landscape; it's an invitation to see the world anew.