Still Life. Box of cigars. 1916

Pyotr Konchalovsky made this still life with a box of cigars, probably in the nineteen-teens. I can imagine him building up the forms, trying to get that ashtray just right. The paint is put on fairly loosely in confident strokes. There’s something so solid about those books, sitting next to that funny little succulent. The volumes look almost like buildings, and that pipe is like a little bridge or tunnel. What was he reading, I wonder? Did he enjoy a cigar while he did so? The colors, muted earth tones punctuated by bright reds and blues, create a sense of warmth and intimacy. Konchalovsky painted this scene with the casual air of someone intimately familiar with their subject. You can almost feel the artist’s presence in the room, contemplating the quiet beauty of these everyday objects. We look at the work of painters from the past in the hope that they will help us see the present a little bit better.