Gursuf 1913

Aristarkh Lentulov painted Gursuf using oil on canvas, and the angular brushstrokes really give it a sense of liveliness. It feels like the buildings are dancing. The colors are super saturated, but not realistic at all. The mountain is this deep indigo, while the houses pop with pink and green, and little dashes of blue and red. I love how the paint is applied with such confidence, each stroke feels deliberate. There’s a little white house near the center, and the way it's rendered with such simplicity makes it feel almost cartoonish. Lentulov was definitely playing with the ideas the Cubists were exploring at the time, but in a really personal way. It reminds me a little of Lyonel Feininger, but with a Russian twist. What I mean is, it's definitely a conversation with other artists, but in the end it's saying something entirely its own.