The left bank of the Yenisei. Kolkhoz 'Luck'. 1951

Pyotr Konchalovsky painted ‘The left bank of the Yenisei. Kolkhoz 'Luck'’ with oil on canvas. You know, I can almost feel the chill in the air, the dampness of the earth, and the stillness of the landscape in this painting. Look at those brushstrokes – thick, gestural, confident. I imagine Konchalovsky standing there, his feet planted firmly on the ground, squinting at the scene before him, mixing his colours on the palette, and then lunging forward with the brush, capturing the light, the texture, the mood. The way he applies the paint in these small dabs and strokes, it almost feels like he’s building the landscape from scratch, one layer at a time. I wonder what he was thinking about as he painted, what he was feeling. Was he trying to capture the essence of the Russian countryside or something more abstract?