Aquarius 1907

Mikalojus Konstantinas Ciurlionis made this delicate painting, Aquarius, with tempera on paper. It’s all about subtlety; muted blues and browns laid down in thin washes that create a dreamy, ethereal feel. Look at how he builds the image with layers, like veils of color. See the way the tower fades into the night sky? The paint isn’t trying to hide itself; it's there in these gentle, almost transparent strokes. It reminds me of trying to capture a feeling, a fleeting moment, rather than a solid thing. The constellation above is like a celestial echo of the structures below, as if the world is both solid and dissolving at the same time. I see echoes of Symbolist painters like Odilon Redon in Ciurlionis’s work, that same interest in the mystical and the unseen. But there’s also something uniquely his own – a quiet, almost musical quality. Like a song you can almost remember.