Morning Tea 1917

Igor Grabar, sometime around the turn of the century, made this painting with what looks like very thick oil paint. It’s like he’s conjuring a morning tea out of pure color. I wonder what it was like for Grabar to apply such heavy impasto. You can see the brushstrokes are almost like sculptural reliefs, catching the light. The overall impression isn’t about perfect representation, but about the sensory experience of being there, the warmth of the sun, the coolness of the white bench. The repeated dabs of blue across the table cloth give a sense of vibrating energy, tying everything together. Painters like Bonnard were doing similar things around the same time. There’s a real sense of trying to capture fleeting moments, to pin them down on canvas. It’s such a human thing, this urge to hold onto beauty. It really makes you think about the ongoing dialogue between artists across time, each one building on what came before, pushing the boundaries of how we see and feel.