Taras Shevchenko 1960

Alla Horska made this portrait of Taras Shevchenko using what looks like oil or acrylic paint, though I wouldn't rule out encaustic, which gives things that waxy, luminous quality. It's a simple palette, mostly blacks, whites, and ochres, but what I love is how she's built the image from these strong, graphic lines, almost like a woodcut, or maybe even stained glass. You get the feeling she's really thinking about how images are constructed, layer by layer. Look at the way she's handled the face, those swirling, almost topographical lines that suggest the planes of the forehead, cheekbones, and the shadow under the nose. There's a tension between the flat, graphic quality of the lines and the way they describe form. Then, the beard—it’s like a series of black and white stripes, each one carefully delineated, giving it this powerful, almost architectural presence. You know, this reminds me a little of some of the German Expressionist portraits, like those by Kirchner or Heckel, where the artists were also trying to capture a kind of raw emotion through simplified forms and bold lines. It’s all about distilling the essence of the subject, and in doing so, maybe, also revealing something about the artist.