Street Scene in a Provincial Town 

Boris Grigoriev’s “Street Scene in a Provincial Town” is painted with oil on canvas. Notice how the buildings, rendered in strokes of yellow and umber, lean into the scene’s center, creating a compressed space. Grigoriev's style embodies a post-Cézanne exploration of form, where shapes are simplified and planes intersect to construct volume. The muted blues of the shutters offer a contrast to the warmth of the buildings, creating a subtle tension. Figures are placed almost as afterthoughts, absorbed into the architectural environment, their anonymity underscoring a sense of alienation, perhaps reflecting early 20th-century anxieties about urbanization and loss of individuality. The texture is rough, almost sculptural, which gives the painting a tactile quality. This materiality is not merely decorative; it serves to disrupt any illusion of depth, emphasizing the canvas as an object in itself. This piece operates within a tradition of challenging representational norms and inviting viewers to contemplate the structural elements of painting.