Composition (Crucifixion) 1964

This “Composition (Crucifixion)” by Hryhorii Havrylenko is a tough painting! The more you look at it, the more it feels like it's shifting in front of your eyes. See how Havrylenko uses these long strokes of pale yellow and ghostly white against a midnight blue? It feels like he’s building up the image, almost like a sculpture, adding and subtracting paint, trying to get something just right. The paint looks thin, washy, but it is definitely applied with purpose. I can imagine him stepping back, squinting, maybe tilting his head, trying to capture a feeling, a moment of… what? Anguish? Transcendence? I love that the painting holds both, and it doesn’t let you settle on one answer. Painters are always in conversation with each other, across time and space, inspiring each other to see the world in new ways. And really, that’s what painting is all about – it’s not about answers but about opening up a space for questions and possibilities.