Costume design for the opera by Rimsky-Korsakov's "Golden Cockerel ' 1931

Here's a costume design made with watercolor, likely on paper, for Rimsky-Korsakov’s opera "The Golden Cockerel," by Martiros Sarian. The colours are muted: ochre, terracotta, grey. The strokes are loose and gestural. It’s as if Sarian dashed it off, not too precious about detail. I wonder what Sarian was thinking when he made this? Was he listening to the music, imagining how it would feel to wear these shapes on stage? I like the way the stripes on the figure's costume curve around his body, as though spun on a pottery wheel. It reminds me of folk art or maybe even some early modernist painters. Artists work in an ongoing conversation across time, don't they? Like echoes in a big hall. This piece feels direct, but still ambiguous. It reminds us painting is an embodied form of expression, open to countless interpretations.