Ancient Shamakhy 1971

Sattar Bahlulzade made this painting of Ancient Shamakhy with oil on canvas, and what strikes me is how he's clearly in love with the stuff, the paint, and its possibilities. Look at how the strokes sit on the surface, all these separate marks that somehow add up to a landscape. There's a real material presence to the paint. It’s not about illusionism; it’s about the gestures, the colors, the actual stuff of painting. See how the crimson trees in the mid-ground almost vibrate against the muted yellows of the ground? This isn’t about perfectly representing a place, it’s about feeling it. It reminds me a little of Milton Avery, that same joy in color and simplified form, or maybe even a touch of Van Gogh in the way the brushstrokes create movement and energy. Bahlulzade lets the paint do its thing, embracing a kind of joyful ambiguity, which is what painting is all about.