Landscape 1975

Sergiy Grigoriev painted this landscape with oils, likely around 1975, and what strikes me is how he seems to be feeling his way through the scene. Look at how Grigoriev builds up the trees. Each brushstroke is visible, not trying to hide the labor, but celebrating the act of painting itself. The paint is applied with a certain thickness, especially in the foliage, creating a tactile surface that invites you to reach out and touch it. Up close, these marks might seem abstract, but step back and they coalesce into leaves rustling in the breeze. It's like Grigoriev is showing us how perception is always a process, a dance between chaos and order. I think of Courbet when I look at this. Both artists embrace the materiality of paint, using it not just to represent the world, but to embody it. There's an honesty, an unpretentiousness, that speaks to the power of art to be both grounded and transcendent.