Deluge (V) 1904

Mikalojus Konstantinas Ciurlionis made this pastel drawing, Deluge (V), sometime around the turn of the last century. The piece looks like a dreamscape, awash with muted greens, blues, and browns, and punctuated by that glowing red rectangle. What I love about pastel is its immediacy; you're working directly with pigment. Here, you can almost feel Ciurlionis dragging the pastel sticks across the paper. Look at the choppy strokes that form the waves. They create a sense of movement, as if the boat is being tossed about. The texture is soft, almost velvety, which gives the scene a hazy, dreamlike quality. But the darkness also hints at something ominous, maybe even biblical. Ciurlionis’s interest in synesthesia – the merging of senses – reminds me of Hilma af Klint, who also sought to express spiritual concepts through abstract forms. Ultimately, this work invites us to embrace ambiguity and find our own meaning in its depths.