Illustration for Alexander Pushkin's 'Fairytale of the Tsar Saltan' 1905

This illustration for Pushkin’s fairytale was made in 1905 by Ivan Bilibin with what looks like watercolour and ink, and you can tell he was really thinking about edges and outlines. It’s so crisp and decorative. I can just imagine Bilibin, hunched over a table with his tiny brushes, carefully delineating each pattern and detail. I really appreciate the stylized flatness of the figures, the repetitive patterns, and the pastel colour palette that makes everything look soft and dreamlike. It’s a kind of stylized world-making, like he’s drawing from folk traditions but making it very much his own. The cat is pretty great. Tucked under the table among all those characters, it seems really out of place. I wonder what other paintings Bilibin was looking at at the time, and what other artists he was in dialogue with. It's funny how artworks can become part of a chain reaction of creativity, inspiring each other across time and space.