Still life with a jar 1958

This painting by Hryhorii Havrylenko is a blast of color, with bold black outlines staking their claim around the shapes. I can just see him, brush loaded, circling the forms, deciding what stays and what gets lost in the mix. The jar itself is a patchwork of reds, purples and greens. It's tottering ever so slightly on a red dotted cloth, like a dancer on a tightrope. There's a playful tension between the flat picture plane and the illusion of depth. The background is a jumble of verticals, like the bars of a cage, painted in stripes. Imagine him working quickly, intuitively, layering colors, and letting the image emerge through happy accidents. It reminds me a bit of Matisse, that same joy in color and pattern, but with a rawer, more urgent energy. You see an ongoing conversation, artists riffing off each other across time, inspiring new ways of seeing and feeling. Painting isn't about answers, it's about the questions we ask along the way.