Early spring 1929

Pyotr Konchalovsky made "Early Spring" with oils on canvas, and what grabs me first is the way he lays down the paint, all juicy and immediate. It feels like he’s wrestling with the scene, trying to capture the exact moment of transition from winter to spring. The colors are muted, earth tones mixed with that pale blue sky. You can almost feel the dampness in the air, that sense of thawing. Look at the way he's rendered the branches, all gnarled and reaching. There's this one particular branch in the foreground that's almost black, like a defiant stroke against the lighter tones. It's like he’s saying, “I’m here, I’m real, even if I’m not pretty.” Konchalovsky reminds me a bit of the Fauves, like Matisse, in his willingness to push color and form to their limits. But he’s got a Russian soul, a sense of melancholy that’s all his own. Art is just a conversation, isn't it, across time and space?