Southern wind 1965

Sattar Bahlulzade made this landscape, "Southern Wind", in the mid-20th century, presumably with oil on canvas. It looks like a bright pink day, and a few trees are catching a breeze. I can imagine him building the painting up, layer by layer, trying to capture the feeling of the wind, the light, the colors. It's clear the pink and yellow aren't meant to be taken literally; it's more about the emotional feeling of the place. The pink ground plane is a pretty simple field of repetitive strokes. But I'm really drawn to how the bright yellow bunches describe the volumes of leaves. It reminds me a little bit of Van Gogh, but with a more personal, expressionistic touch. He's not just painting what he sees, he's painting how it makes him feel. You can see Bahlulzade's hand in every stroke, and that's what makes it so alive. Thinking about his other paintings, there's a way in which you can see him wrestling with how to depict the landscape, how to make it come alive on the canvas. That's what's exciting about painting - artists riff off one another, and keep the conversation going.