Country Friends 1912

Nikolay Bogdanov-Belsky's painting "Country Friends" is this wonderful, quiet moment, likely made with oils, of three girls relaxing together, one playing a mandolin. There is a freedom in the brushwork, a looseness, that gives it a relaxed feel, very different from the polished surfaces you find in some academic painting. You can almost feel him making marks. I like the way he handles the textures here, the way the light catches the different materials and patterns. Look at the girl in the red dress. It's like a sea of red, broken up by these small, pale ovals. They don't really describe the fabric, but they give a sense of its liveliness. It's less about exact representation and more about capturing the overall feel, the process of seeing. That feels very contemporary to me. I'm reminded of the way Vuillard would combine figures and patterns to flatten the space of a painting. Bogdanov-Belsky isn’t afraid to let things be unresolved, to embrace the ambiguity of the painted surface.