Costume design for the Opera "Fairytale of the Tsar Saltan" by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov 1936

Ivan Bilibin dreamed up this costume design for the Opera “Fairytale of the Tsar Saltan” in 1936. You can see it in the sharp chevrons of yellow, red, and green traveling down the Boiardo’s ceremonial robe. It looks like it was made with watercolors and ink. I love imagining Bilibin, bent over his drawing table with his tiny brushes, mixing the colors, and carefully drawing each line. I wonder if he listened to the Opera while he painted, thinking about how the singers would move about on stage in this costume. I want to know how Bilibin chose these specific colors. Was it just the fashion of the time, or did the colors have a specific symbolism? And look at the zig-zags. I’m wondering if there is a connection to the avant-garde artists, like Natalia Goncharova or Alexandra Ekster, and their own experiments with color and pattern? Perhaps Bilibin saw their work and thought, "I can do that!" It's fun to think of artists inspiring and challenging each other, engaging in a visual conversation across time and space, don't you think?