Sacrifice of Abel 1910

Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin made this painting of The Sacrifice of Abel with what looks like tempera, maybe, on a rough surface - I can almost feel the give of the brush as it skids over the texture. Look at those blues, fighting to take flight as wings on the composition’s edges! I imagine Petrov-Vodkin, pushing against the weight of the story, the solemnity of sacrifice, looking for release. Maybe he found it in that central column, a shaky, almost comical pillar. What a strange choice, like a melting candle about to topple over and ruin everything. Was Petrov-Vodkin thinking of earlier artists like Giotto when he was making this? Certainly, he was trying to make something both monumental and deeply, anxiously human. So much tenderness and terror seem to be happening at once. That’s what gives this painting its power.