Still Life. Oranges and crumpled paper. 1946

Pyotr Konchalovsky made this painting, "Still Life. Oranges and crumpled paper." with oil on canvas. It's now in the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow. Look at the way he's built up the surface with these short, choppy strokes – the brushwork is so present, so alive. It’s like he's wrestling the paint into submission, but also letting it be what it wants to be. I love the tension between the solid, almost sculptural oranges and the flimsy, papery wrappers. You can almost feel the weight of the fruit versus the lightness of the paper. Check out the way he’s dabbed the paint on the green cloth, so it seems to fold and crumple and reflect the light all at once. It reminds me of Cezanne, but with a kind of rough-and-tumble energy all his own. Konchalovsky's embrace of the process is so clear, echoing the spirit of artists like Chaim Soutine, who also prioritized raw expression over polished perfection. It reminds us that art is not about answers, but about the questions we ask.