Kamnitnik 1905

Ivan Grohar made Kamnitnik with oil paint on canvas, and it's just a feast of tiny marks. The paint application is like a mosaic, each dab an individual thought, building up to this shimmering landscape. Looking closely, you can see how the surface is thick with paint, almost crusty in places, it's like he's building up the snow with the paint itself. The color palette is so restrained, mostly whites and muted oranges, but that makes it all the more powerful. I’m drawn to the way the light seems to glow from within the canvas; it’s like Grohar captured the very essence of a winter day. You can really see the influence of Impressionism here, but with a distinctly personal touch. It reminds me a bit of some of the later paintings by Pissarro, but Grohar has his own sensibility, a quiet, almost reverent approach to the landscape. It's a painting that invites you to slow down and look, and then look again, and discover something new each time.