Sheet 'Ch' from the album 'Ukrainian alphabet' 1917

Editor: This is Heorhiy Narbut's 1917 print, a sheet titled "'Ch' from the album 'Ukrainian alphabet'." The stark black and white drawing feels almost dreamlike, or maybe a bit nightmarish with all those elongated figures. How do you interpret this work? Curator: The letter "Ch," rendered in both elaborate Art Nouveau and bold, stark typography, serves as the foundation. Above it, a whole symbolic world unfolds. Consider the figures: attenuated, almost spectral. They seem to be caught between the earthly and ethereal realms, bathed in the harsh light. Do you notice how they relate to the building in the background? Editor: Yes, the building appears ordinary, grounded. But the figures feel detached, like they are only visiting our dimension from elsewhere. Is the artist hinting at something about Ukrainian identity at the time, a sense of displacement perhaps? Curator: Exactly! The image teems with this duality. The lamp post might symbolize enlightenment or perhaps surveillance. The figures are archetypes, not individuals. Their gestures – reaching, falling, reclining – are all weighted with symbolic meaning. The image carries a collective cultural memory, a symbolic encoding of hopes and anxieties within a rapidly changing world. Editor: So the illustration accompanying the letter transcends being a mere decoration and embodies the letter's spirit on another plane? Curator: Precisely! It's a dialogue between the concrete and the abstract. We are not merely seeing a letter, we're seeing the soul of a letter. Editor: That's a totally different approach to thinking about an alphabet. I will never see fonts the same way again. Curator: Nor will I. Each line tells a silent story!