Woman with Guitar 1913

Aristarkh Lentulov painted this "Woman with Guitar" with bold, almost clashing colors and sharp angles, like he's building a world out of painted shards. It's a fascinating way to make a picture, isn't it? The textures in this painting really grab me. Look at the dress, how he's used these flat planes of pink and purple. You can almost feel the way the brush dragged across the canvas. And then there's her face, those almost clown-like rouge patches, softening the angular abstraction of her face. It's like he's playing with the idea of representation itself. Lentulov reminds me a little of the German Expressionist painter, Kirchner, in how he uses color to create mood. Both artists aren't afraid of making their canvases vibrate with discordant feeling. It’s a reminder that art doesn't have to be polite or pretty, it can be raw and real, just like life.