Winter. Red Hill in the realm of Berendey 

Curator: Here we have a tempera painting called "Winter. Red Hill in the realm of Berendey" by Boris Grigoriev. Editor: It feels like a fever dream – a jumble of winter imagery fractured and reassembled. There's a haunting quality, with that skeletal tree looming large. Curator: The painting does display some clear characteristics of the Russian Avant-Garde. Note how Grigoriev destabilizes perspective through fragmentation. The hill isn't simply red, but segmented. Editor: Red often signifies danger, revolution. Paired with "winter", that red hill becomes even more potent; a landscape gripped by an almost violent cold, awaiting rebirth, perhaps? Curator: Precisely! It also plays with shallow space through a compressed arrangement of its planes. Notice, too, how the forms don't completely resolve. Are those birds? Or simply more abstracted shapes relating to one another through color? Editor: Look at the anthropomorphic qualities of the trees, as though they’re watchful guardians of some ancient realm. This makes the whole scene dreamlike. There’s also a vulnerable figure huddled low against the snowy foreground. What story does it hold? Curator: The title itself, mentioning "Berendey," might hint at a deeper narrative. In Rimsky-Korsakov's opera, "The Snow Maiden," the realm of Berendey is a world of ancient Slavic myth. This adds another layer to what you point out about the painting's storytelling possibilities. Editor: Perhaps Grigoriev is subtly incorporating pre-Christian beliefs into the frigid landscape. It's as though those folkloric images have burrowed their way beneath layers of snow, history, and the veneer of the Russian avant-garde. Curator: Indeed. The ambiguity enhances its allure. What appeared purely formal in my first assessment expands when those readings get added. Editor: It all contributes to its complex power. One senses so many invisible narratives stirring below its surface. A chilling, striking creation.