Music. Wife at the Piano 1929

Oleksa Novakivskyi painted "Music. Wife at the Piano" with oil, and it looks like he was really going for it! I mean, look at those thick strokes and the way the colors kind of vibrate against each other. It's like he's building up this whole scene layer by layer, not just depicting it. There's this real physicality to the paint, like he's wrestling with the image to get it just right. Check out the way he's handled the piano itself. Those blacks are deep and almost sculptural, but then there are these flashes of white and grey that suggest light and reflection. It’s like the music is pouring out of the instrument and filling the room. It reminds me a bit of Bonnard, that sense of intimacy and domesticity, but with a rawer, more expressionistic edge. It’s proof that art is never really finished, just abandoned at some point in the process.