Konkol (Finland) 1917

Boris Kustodiev made this painting of Konkol, Finland. The strokes here feel like a summer breeze, light and breezy, swirling together soft greens and blues. I imagine Kustodiev, squinting in the sun, trying to capture the particular shimmer of the water. You can almost feel him dabbing at the canvas, trying to mix the right shade of green for the grass, or the perfect blue for the distant hills. There's a looseness to the brushwork, an immediacy that makes it feel like he painted it in one sitting. I keep thinking about the materiality of paint. Look at the way the brushstrokes build up the texture, how the colors blend and bleed into each other. That is how he sees, how he thinks, how he feels. He is a kind of conduit. I can't help but feel like artists are just constantly talking to each other across time, picking up where someone else left off, riffing on their ideas.