Still Life with Peonies in a Vase 1912

Pyotr Konchalovsky made this still life with peonies in a vase using oil paint, and you can really see that process at work. The brushstrokes are so present. Look at the petals of the flowers – they’re built up with these juicy dabs of purple and pink, almost like he’s sculpting with paint. The leaves are a similar story, these sharp, confident strokes of green that give them this real sense of life. The ground, or the table it stands on, is laid down with dynamic brushstrokes in blues and purples. It feels like the whole painting is breathing, alive. I love how the looseness of the brushwork lets the colors vibrate against each other, especially in the background with those oranges and yellows. It reminds me a little of Matisse, that same joy in color and bold, simple forms. But Konchalovsky brings his own kind of raw energy to it, this feeling that the painting is as much about the act of painting as it is about the flowers themselves.