Saint George’s Day in Bolnisi (fragment) 1915

Niko Pirosmani, born in Georgia, made this painting, Saint George’s Day in Bolnisi, with oil on cloth sometime around the turn of the century. The muted olive-brown is almost oppressive, making the white figures all the more present. I imagine Pirosmani painting these figures, dipping his brush into the white paint and just slapping it onto the cloth, trying to capture something essential about the scene. Look at the central figure behind the table—it's like they’re holding a party, but something's not quite right, is it? I can't help but think of other painters like Henri Rousseau, who also had this naive style of painting. There is a kind of raw honesty and directness to this work, something I think a lot of artists working today aspire to achieve. Artists are always in conversation with one another, across time and place, influencing and borrowing ideas. Painting is a process of making marks and gestures, a form of embodied expression, that welcomes different perspectives.