On the bridge (the wife and daughter of the artist) 1917

Curator: A rather poignant study isn’t it? The soft, almost ephemeral strokes of Boris Kustodiev's pencil seem to capture a fleeting moment, suspended in time, wouldn’t you say? Editor: Suspended is exactly right! There's something spectral about it, a memory fading at the edges. Looking at these figures on the bridge, you get the feeling they’re caught between worlds, or maybe eras. And those skirts! The heavy skirt feels anchored while the one of the little girl in the front seems breezy with youth, a sailor dress with an intriguing braid. Is this his family, Boris' wife and daughter perhaps? Curator: Precisely. We are gazing at “On the Bridge (the wife and daughter of the artist)", rendered in 1917, and rendered so delicately with what appears to be simply pencil. Kustodiev really invites us to feel the shared, quiet contemplation, despite the somewhat stark medium. Editor: The almost Romantic softness in a mere pencil sketch feels contradictory in that period. You wouldn't think of something so tender emerging from the Russian avant-garde at all. This looks almost like a surveillance from a loving father, yet to draw in 1917... were women allowed to freely traverse cities or were they in certain enclaves? What bridges were available? Perhaps these women lived by this very bridge so Kustodiev saw them all the time. Curator: It’s certainly tempting to overlay our contemporary expectations onto Kustodiev’s Russia, but the urban landscape for women in that time was certainly changing – becoming less strictly defined, and his choice of a bridge really evokes that sense of possibility. Although, as an artist suffering the onset of paralysis – an illness that eventually confined him, that viewpoint becomes all the more meaningful. There’s almost an urgency here, don’t you think? He needed to capture his loved ones out in the world before the world narrowed for him. Editor: Definitely, especially how he subtly makes their backs be our front, but only suggests what must exist in front of these women, and to the right - something more! A kind of optimism. That is probably the genius here - he makes us miss this unseen place that will likely take these women onward. And knowing the context of his paralysis, the feeling becomes palpable! Thanks for the insights! Curator: It was my sincere pleasure! And that sense of untold possibility really becomes amplified, I think, once you appreciate his personal circumstances at that moment in history. It shifts this intimate portrait to a shared human story.