Samarkand 1921

Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin made this painting, Samarkand, in oil, and look at how the composition sits somewhere between landscape and map. It's like he’s turning the world into a picture and vice versa, embracing the ambiguity of looking. The painting is built up with these tiny, soft brushstrokes. See how the paint is thinned out, almost transparent in places. It's scrubbed and layered, like he's searching for the right tone, the right balance. The buildings and the ground seem to blend into each other. The palette is muted, earthy, lots of browns and greens, which gives it a feeling of distance, like you're looking at it through a haze. I’m thinking about Giorgio Morandi, who also used a limited palette to create these contemplative, quiet paintings. But where Morandi focuses on still life, Petrov-Vodkin is taking in a whole world. In the end, it feels less like a specific place and more like a memory of one.