The First Snow on the River 1915

Konstantin Gorbatov made this oil painting of a riverside scene with boats and buildings, sometime before 1945. Look at those brushstrokes! You can almost feel the chill in the air, right? I'm wondering if he mixed his own pigments, trying to get just the right shade of grey for the winter sky. Did he stand on the shore, squinting at the scene before him, trying to capture the way the light flickered on the water? I bet he layered the paint, building up texture to mimic the rough surfaces of the boats and buildings. See those dark vertical strokes reflecting in the water? They remind me of the paintings of the French Impressionists. It’s like Gorbatov’s having a conversation with Monet or Pissarro across time. Artists are always talking to each other in this way. Painting is a messy, intuitive process, full of happy accidents and unexpected discoveries. It’s about embracing the unknown and allowing the painting to reveal itself, little by little.