Gurzuf. The mountains. 1929

Curator: Look at this beautiful, soft watercolor by Pyotr Konchalovsky from 1929 titled "Gurzuf. The mountains." Editor: The muted palette is what first strikes me; purples and greens give it this hazy, dreamlike quality. What is the mood that is evoked by these colors for you? Curator: To me, the use of watercolor is important, as it's a very immediate and accessible medium. The quick strokes suggest the artist rapidly capturing a moment. It makes one think about the conditions of its production; was he painting this en plein air? Was he trying to capture something about the landscape in that specific moment? How do you see its formal properties as relating to its possible creation? Editor: The composition definitely leads the eye back into space; the repetition of forms—the rooflines of the houses mirrored in the mountains behind—create depth. Curator: It makes me think about leisure time, who has access to it, who gets to enjoy landscapes and retreat to Gurzuf during this period, what socio-economic bracket enables people to view this vista as pastoral instead of a workplace or military vantage point. Editor: But I find the formal relationships to be fascinating in themselves. How he juxtaposes soft washes of color with harder-edged architectural forms, creating this tension between the natural and the built environment. Do you think Konchalovsky used that as a means to highlight labor involved? Curator: No. To my eye, these rapid paintings are studies. Capturing his impression of light on location, or exploring compositional arrangement of elements. Its value comes more so as documentation of a Soviet-era view point on landscape. What are your closing thoughts? Editor: Well, the more I look at it, the more the relationship of shape and form takes prominence for me. How he captured a sense of volume without fully defining all the edges, using subtle shading to describe the mountains... that's where the artistry truly lies.