Wooden church. Carpathians 1958

Hryhorii Havrylenko made this drawing of a wooden church in the Carpathians, using ink on paper. The thing that really grabs me is the sheer energy of the line work. It’s like he’s trying to capture not just the look of the church, but also the feeling of being there, maybe the cold air, the texture of the wood. Look at how he uses these quick, confident strokes to define the shapes of the buildings. There’s no fussiness here, just a real sense of immediacy. I'm drawn to the roof of the building on the right. How the lines overlap and intersect, creating a sense of depth and shadow. It's a simple technique, but it's so effective in conveying the texture of the roof and the way the light falls across it. You could see echoes of this approach in the work of Egon Schiele, who also used line to such expressive effect. It’s a reminder that art is always a conversation, with artists borrowing and building on each other's ideas across time.