Cypress trees 1902

Anna Ostroumova-Lebedeva made this striking print, Cypress Trees, with black ink on paper. I love the stark contrast between the dark trees and the bright white of the paper, it's such a bold statement. You can really feel the artist grappling with the material, exploring the push and pull between positive and negative space. The surface of the print has this incredible tactile quality. The ink looks almost velvety in places, and in others, it’s more textured, like you could reach out and feel the grain of the woodblock. Look at the way she's carved the trees. Notice how each one is a unique shape with individual peaks? The way the branches are suggested with those deliberate marks, it’s like she's captured the very essence of these trees. There's something about the pared-down simplicity of this piece that reminds me of the woodcuts of Ernst Ludwig Kirchner. It's a reminder that art is about seeing, feeling, and responding to the world around us. It’s about the beauty in ambiguity, and the power of suggestion.