Family Portrait 1914

Zinaida Serebriakova captured her family with graphite on paper, a symphony of grey lines dancing across the surface. The scene unfolds as a snapshot of daily life, with each figure absorbed in their own activity, reading, knitting, pondering. I can only imagine her sitting there, charcoal in hand, rapidly sketching their forms, trying to capture not just their likeness but also the mood of the moment. That cross-hatching on the figure to the left gives a sense of weight and volume, and the way she uses short, broken lines to suggest the texture of the fabric – it’s like she’s feeling her way through the drawing, discovering it as she goes. It reminds me a little of Paula Modersohn-Becker's early drawings, which possess the same kind of raw, unfiltered honesty. It’s a beautiful example of how drawing can be more than just representation; it can be a way of thinking, feeling, and connecting with the world around us.