Portrait of V. V. Ivanov 1941

Pyotr Konchalovsky painted this portrait of V. V. Ivanov with oils on canvas, and you can really see the brushstrokes, thick and confident. I imagine Konchalovsky, in his studio, really wanting to capture Ivanov's essence, not just a likeness, but something deeper. See how the brown and reddish hues give a warm, intellectual feel? The texture of the paint itself adds a tactile dimension, almost as if you could feel the weight of the books and the tweediness of Ivanov’s jacket. That confident dab of paint that forms the edge of the book, how can paint do that? It's like he's saying something about the sitter, but also about the act of painting itself. So good. Konchalovsky, like other Russian painters of his time, was part of this huge, ongoing conversation about what it means to represent reality on canvas. The portrait celebrates not only Ivanov but also the very act of seeing and interpreting the world through paint.