By Window 1921

Editor: This is "By Window," a painting from 1921 by Boris Kustodiev, probably oil on canvas. The woman's back is turned, but it seems as if she’s overlooking this incredible landscape through a window—there's also a huge bouquet of flowers in view. It’s an intimate scene, but also feels…staged somehow. What’s your read on this work? Curator: It's interesting you mention the feeling of it being staged. Kustodiev painted this just a few years after the Russian Revolution, a period of immense social upheaval. How do you think that context might inform the image of this woman looking out at what appears to be a calm, almost idyllic landscape? Editor: Hmm, I hadn't considered that directly. Maybe the “staging” is Kustodiev showing us an ideal, a nostalgia for a pre-revolutionary Russia that perhaps only existed in paintings like this? Like the viewer and woman in the painting are positioned in a past that is long gone. Curator: Exactly. Notice the detailed shawl she's wearing, the ornate vase holding the flowers, the style of the buildings visible outside. These all speak to a particular class and period. The landscape, too, is deliberately pastoral, referencing earlier traditions of Russian painting that romanticized rural life. And who do you think is staring at the viewer just above the bouquet of roses? Editor: Is that supposed to be the artist himself? So, is the male subject in the image the artist inserting himself into the equation by framing her viewing this idyllic world as well? What a charged piece. Curator: Indeed. It presents an interesting perspective on the artist’s own position as an observer, perhaps even a participant, in the changing social landscape of Russia at the time. It also speaks to the power of art to both reflect and shape our understanding of history. Editor: So much more than just a woman by a window; it’s a window into a specific moment in history. Thanks!