Landscape 1971

Editor: This is Hryhorii Havrylenko's "Landscape" from 1971, an oil painting. I am immediately struck by how muted the colours are. The brushstrokes seem deliberate, almost mechanical. How does this adherence to the real affect your perception of it? Curator: The flatness of colour and texture speaks to the industrialized agriculture common in the Soviet Union at the time. Notice how the trees are presented almost as mere components in a wider, economically-motivated configuration. Editor: Do you mean the landscape feels…productive, or about the industrial production itself? It seems barren. Curator: Precisely! It’s about both production and the consequence of it. The repetitive brushstrokes might be seen to represent a relentless, almost soul-less labor process imposed on rural populations during that era. The bareness might hint at the depletion of resources under centralized control. Does that perspective resonate with you? Editor: Yes, thinking about it in terms of production really changes how I see the muted colours now, a depiction of depleted land due to Soviet industrialization. Curator: It’s fascinating to consider the labor and socio-political conditions mirrored by the materiality of paint itself, wouldn’t you agree? Editor: Absolutely. It makes the act of painting more complex and political than I first considered. It encourages me to rethink artistic interpretation through societal processes.