Sketch for the opera "Legend of the Invisible City of Kitezh and Maiden Fevronia" by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov 1929

This stage set design for Rimsky-Korsakov’s opera, made by Ivan Bilibin, uses these incredibly precise lines to create a sense of depth and fantasy. It's like a hyper-detailed drawing, but it's meant to be a space. The colors are muted, almost pastel, giving the whole scene a dreamlike quality, and the way everything is outlined so meticulously makes you feel like you're looking at a page from a fairytale. Look at the path and the clouds above. It's like a rainbow, but it's also like a strange hallucination, a vision of another world. The lines are crisp and clean, making everything feel a bit unreal. I am reminded of the pattern paintings of Etel Adnan, but she would have gone wild with the colour. Here everything feels controlled and a little bit too perfect. Still, it's intriguing, this balance between control and imagination, especially in something meant for the stage.