Egypt. Pyramids 1924

Ivan Bilibin’s image, Egypt. Pyramids, probably done with gouache or tempera in 1924, gives us these really graphic shapes. It’s so striking, the way the pyramids sit on the horizon. I wonder what Bilibin was thinking about when he made this. Was he trying to capture the way light rakes across these ancient forms? I imagine him carefully mixing these earthy tones, layering thin washes of color to build up this dry, dusty atmosphere. I can see in the painting a formal intelligence and a creative response to the landscape. The artist frames the composition with the dark rocks in the foreground, leading your eye towards the play of light across the architecture. For me, this piece speaks to a shared visual language that crosses cultures and eras. It’s like artists are constantly borrowing and building on each other’s ideas through time. Painting is about that conversation, that exchange. It's about embracing uncertainty and the multitude of interpretations, rather than a single, fixed meaning.