Boy's Head 1952

Sergiy Grigoriev made this portrait, Boy's Head, with oils, and you can tell he’s thinking about colour as he works. Look how the light is hitting the side of the boy’s face, turning it red, really making it glow. The paint itself is pretty thin, but it's there; Grigoriev is making the most of the texture of the canvas. It’s like he’s painting into the weave of the fabric, pulling the image out of it. You can see it in the way he’s described the shadow of the boy’s neck in dabs of colour, the little squares almost pixelated. It's funny, this way of painting reminds me of Vuillard, how he would knit an image together, letting the process of painting show. There are no grand statements here, just a quiet observation of a boy and a material exploration of what paint can do.