Still Life 1930

Konstantinos Parthenis made this ‘Still Life’ with oil on canvas. It's an image that feels very internal, but I think that comes from the artist really thinking about what it means to make a picture. The textures are so interesting, very pale blues and earth tones that give the image a kind of washed out look. When I look closely at the blue lines defining the jug, they remind me of those pencil lines kids use for tracing. But instead of a clean, crisp outline, these lines are fuzzy and a little bit awkward. There’s this sense of the artist feeling his way through the space, testing it out as he goes. The whole piece feels like a really open-ended process. It makes me think of Cézanne, but with a Greek twist. Like he took Cézanne's recipe for turning life into paintings and added his own special ingredient. It’s a reminder that art doesn’t have to be about perfection, it can be about the adventure of seeing and discovering.