Nocturne 1914

Mikhail Larionov made this Nocturne with oil on canvas, and it's really something, isn't it? The way he’s put down these marks, it's almost like he’s wrestling with the paint itself. Look closely and you see how the texture is built up, layer upon layer. The surface isn’t smooth; it’s got these ridges and valleys of paint, thick and thin. You can almost feel the energy of his hand moving across the canvas. It feels like looking at a scaffolding, or a structure in the process of becoming. I keep thinking about that cluster of darker marks near the lower left, it reads almost like a signature, a concentrated jumble of meaning and emotion. It reminds me a little bit of some of de Kooning's more abstract works, with that same sense of dynamic, unresolved energy. Ultimately, I think Nocturne is about the sheer joy and struggle of trying to make something new, of wrestling with the unknown and embracing ambiguity.