Still life with rabbit 1954

Pyotr Konchalovsky made this still life of a rabbit, alongside cured meat, onions, and a bottle of wine. I can see how he was working, feeling his way through the composition. I bet he was thinking, what does it mean to arrange objects? It’s all about relationships, right? The rabbit is a brown smudge of fur, but it's also next to that crumpled white cloth, almost nestled. The eye travels up to the ham. What’s it doing there? Is it a formal echo of the rabbit, or an ironic twist? There’s something about the way the painting is both representational, but also raw. The brushstrokes feel honest, like he was wrestling with what he saw. A bit like Chardin, but with more drama. It makes you wonder what other artists were doing at the time, how they were all pushing and pulling at the same questions. And that’s what keeps painting alive, this endless conversation across time.