Creation of the World XI 1906

Mikalojus Konstantinas Ciurlionis made *Creation of the World XI* with tempera on paper. The surface is scrubby and scumbled, as though the paint was pushed around with a dry brush, like he was coaxing these forms into being. The overall impression is dreamlike, in part because the paint is so thin and transparent. It's like looking at a memory of a city, veiled in mist, with towers and floating arches. Look at the way the towers are built up with little vertical strokes. They're solid, but they're also dissolving into the atmosphere around them. That duality, that sense of something being both present and absent, is what makes this painting so compelling. It puts me in mind of another painter, Odilon Redon, who was also interested in creating these kinds of ambiguous, dreamlike spaces.