Birkenhain 1905

Kazimir Malevich made this small oil painting, Birkenhain, with brisk brushstrokes, a palette of greens, blues, and earth tones. You can imagine him outside, squinting at the sun, trying to capture the feeling of the scene. I can relate to that struggle, trying to make something cohere, the shifting and emerging through trial, error, and intuition. What was he thinking when he made it? Did he know that he was on the precipice of something completely new? The paint is applied thickly, giving the surface a tactile quality. I love how the fence in the foreground is rendered with such loose, gestural marks. It’s almost like he’s saying, "Here’s a fence, but it’s also just paint." It relates to other landscape painters like Monet, yet it's also pointing towards his later, more abstract work. Painting is a conversation, artists inspire one another across time. And this is the wonder of painting—it embraces ambiguity. So many interpretations!