Kaunas. Zhalyakalnis in winter. 1939

Mstislav Dobuzhinsky made this landscape of Kaunas in winter with what looks like pencil and wash. You can imagine the artist perched on a hillside, maybe even in the snow, watching the village slowly disappear under the weather. I really get a sense of transience from this one. The sky’s this indeterminate creamy-pink, like the light just before dusk, and the falling snow is rendered as flecks of white that obscure the houses huddled together in the valley below. Look how Dobuzhinsky suggests the dense, bare branches of the tree in the foreground with these scratchy, angular lines. The texture feels rough, raw, and wintry, with the dark lines of the branches contrasting beautifully with the pastel tones of the background. Artists, you know, we’re all looking at each other’s work, responding and reacting. Even though this isn’t exactly my style, I feel a kinship with Dobuzhinsky here. We’re all trying to capture something elusive, fleeting, to make sense of the world through marks on a surface.