Still Life. Bread, ham and wine. 1948

Pyotr Konchalovsky made this painting of bread, ham, and wine, and some hot peppers, with oil on canvas. The painting feels like it's coming into being through all those visible brushstrokes, like Konchalovsky is feeling his way through color and form. I imagine him stepping back, squinting, maybe wiping away some paint, trying again. The ham just plops there, and the brushstrokes show every bit of its textured surface. It’s as though Konchalovsky really wants us to *see* this ham, to feel its weight, to almost smell its saltiness. This is the kind of painting that makes you think about what paintings can do, how they make us see the world in new ways. It reminds me of Chardin, how he took simple objects and made them monumental. Painting can be a conversation across time, a way of seeing that inspires another way of seeing, and so on.