The desire of the land 1963

Sattar Bahlulzade made this painting, "The desire of the land", using oils, and what strikes me is how he’s built it up bit by bit. Layer upon layer. There's something so tender about the way he’s applied the paint, like an offering. Look at how the red of the poppy field at the base of the painting blooms into existence. It's a kind of dance. The colour feels really grounded, earthy, but the flowers are all individual, like quick dabs of pure pigment. Then your eye drifts up to that pink and green division and the cool blue mountain range. Bahlulzade gets that atmosphere right – that feeling of distance. It's a kind of conversation with someone like Milton Avery, maybe, but where Avery flattens and simplifies, Bahlulzade builds and complicates. This feels like a world that keeps expanding the longer you look at it, a constant invitation to enter and explore.