Still life with shoe and mirror 1906

Natalia Goncharova made this still life with shoe and mirror, and what strikes me is how she seems to build the scene out of dabs of color. It's like she’s thinking through paint. Look at how the paint sits on the canvas, it's thick in some places, almost like she's sculpting with it. The flowers are built from these tiny little brushstrokes, but each stroke has its own direction, its own energy. Then you have the shoe, a dark, brooding presence made up of layered blacks and browns. It's not just about depicting a shoe; it's about the feeling of a shoe, the weight, the shadow. I'm drawn to the area around the mirror, it is almost dissolving into the background. It’s like she's saying, reality is fluid, always changing. It reminds me a bit of Cézanne, how he uses color and form to create a sense of depth and space, but with a uniquely Russian sensibility. Goncharova reminds us that art is not about perfect representation, but about exploring the world through our senses and emotions.