1920
oil on canvas
105 õ 123
The dramatic nature of the time and the artist’s conception of still life, expressed not as “the life of things, but as your strengthened inner life,” are manifested in this painting in a distinct and emotional manner. The expression of colour and shifts of shapes so completely fill the world of objects with emotions that the viewer gets a sense of anxious foreboding, although the actors are not present in the painting.
Applying his paints with brush strokes in high relief, Falk achieves an effect of “agitated” surface to the painting, a “noise of the texture.” Under the action of the colour and texture element, the objects are subjected to distortion which allows the inner character of the shapes to be revealed. In his delineations, they literally preserve the memory of the inhabitants of the interior.
In the centre, on the table the unique culmination of the drama plays out: there is a clash between the black and white colours – an image of the absolute opposites and, at the same time, of the eternal unity of the world.
The viewer is actively drawn into the “life” of the interior by the dynamism of the inverted space which has swung open like leaves, moving along the length of the painting.
at 10, Krymsky Val, Hall 5
