Breads 1920

Pyotr Konchalovsky made this painting, Breads, with oil on canvas, and you can almost smell the bread. The painting feels solid, weighty, and real, like something that was worked over and worried about. I can feel Pyotr making the painting, putting it down, taking it away, scraping it, and making it again. He probably stared at his subject intensely. Did he eat the bread after? I would have. The weight scale and blue drapery set the stage, but they also feel as alive as anything else here. Everything is breathing. I am reminded a little of Cezanne, but also Philip Guston, and even Marsden Hartley – that same interest in the everyday, the ordinary made extraordinary. Artists are in an ongoing conversation, inspiring each other, riffing on each other's ideas, and making something entirely new. It's like a game of telephone where the message changes with each telling, becoming something unique and beautiful in the process.