View of a Monastery 1933

Konstantin Gorbatov made this painting, View of a Monastery, with what looks like oil paint, and a fair amount of it too. You can see the paint handling, how the brushstrokes build up to create a thick crust of colour. It feels like the process is very much on show here. I love the way he layers the colours. Look at the way the greys and blues of the snowy ground mix with touches of pink and ochre. You can see how he’s used different pressures and angles to create a kind of rhythm. It's almost as if the monastery is rising from the snow itself. I think that the way the building blends into the landscape is very cool. Looking at the sky, it also reminds me a little of some of the landscapes by Emil Nolde, that same sense of expressive freedom and emotional intensity. Ultimately for me, this piece serves as a reminder that painting is a language that is always evolving and it connects artists across time and place.