Biron Palace and barges 1916

Anna Ostroumova-Lebedeva made this print of the Biron Palace and barges, but exactly when is a bit of a mystery, isn’t it? The first thing that grabs you is the limited palette—almost a monochrome, but with a warm, golden glow seeping through the darks. It’s this glow that makes the scene feel alive, as if the sun is just about to break through. Look at how the texture isn’t smooth, how the surface feels almost coarse. This is so important to understanding printmaking as a process. Each mark, each line, is deliberate, a result of physical pressure and choice. You can almost feel Anna’s hand guiding the tool across the plate. Then there are those amazing reflections in the water. They aren’t precise, but more like fractured versions of reality. Those vertical lines echoing the masts of the ships? They add a sense of depth, but also a bit of unease. The whole piece becomes this dance between what’s there and what isn’t, what’s solid and what’s fleeting. It reminds me a bit of Whistler’s nocturnes, in the way it uses atmosphere to create a mood. Both artists were more interested in evoking a feeling than in describing a scene. Art is an ongoing conversation, right?