State Secretary General Mikhail Galkin-Vrasky 1903

This is a portrait of State Secretary General Mikhail Galkin-Vrasky by Boris Kustodiev, but we don't know exactly when it was made. The painting is all about brushstrokes, applied rapidly and with feeling. The painting emerges through color and gesture: amber, black, crimson, white, and the green of his bald head. I can imagine Kustodiev circling the canvas, stepping back, squinting. I sympathize with Kustodiev here. The guy has to paint the State Secretary General, but he’s gotta find a way to make it a painting, you know? The materiality is luscious. I particularly like the gesture of the white brushstrokes behind the sitter’s head. Are those papers? Are they angels? It is like an out-of-focus photograph, all light and blur. Kustodiev plays with the surface, disrupting any fixed reading. The best painters inspire one another across time. I look at this portrait, and I feel invigorated! It's a reminder that painting thrives on ambiguity.