Landscape with a road 1910

David Burliuk made this landscape with a road with what looks like very free, expressive brushwork. The color palette seems muted, but in person, you can see the range of color in the greens and blues of the foliage and the browns of the road. It feels immediate, like a sketch, but it’s also a complete world. The surface has a lot of texture. The paint is applied thickly in some areas and thinly in others, which gives the painting a kind of visual energy. The road seems to be created with decisive strokes, communicating a sense of depth and form. Look at how he uses darker tones to define the edges and shadows, and lighter touches to suggest the play of light on the surface. It’s like he’s building the landscape up from the ground. Burliuk reminds me of Van Gogh, who also had this ability to transform ordinary scenes into something emotionally charged through the way he handled paint. Like so many paintings, this landscape invites you to slow down, to look closer, and to think about what you are seeing.