Self Portrait with Wife 1918

Curator: The texture, tone, and lines in Boris Kustodiev's 1918 pencil drawing "Self Portrait with Wife" immediately struck me. There is so much the light and shadow leave unsaid here. Editor: It feels unfinished, almost as if glimpsed from a dream. Note how Kustodiev divided the paper, top to bottom, and how each plane suggests another location for living in his memory, while he and his wife appear present and very tangible in the composition. Curator: I understand. Looking closely at the lower register of the artwork, we observe an interior or sleigh where a well dressed woman appears snuggled next to Kustodiev. Yet what materials were available to Kustodiev at this point in his life to create and express intimacy? I can't help thinking that paper and pencils were accessible to him during a period when health was declining from spinal tuberculosis and Russian society was enduring revolution. How could it not influence the mood? Editor: It’s a masterful, yet somber piece, isn’t it? Kustodiev’s line work is delicate but conveys substantial weight. The strategic blurring and shadowing of the pencil is such a striking visual device, a study in implied mass and emotive density, almost like the pressure one places on memory or experience. What about you? Curator: Exactly, as a tool, the pencil permitted a swift mode for the creation of such studies. Editor: Indeed, note the application on the skyline towards the top plane—such a thin yet effective rendering of the mass on the river. I'm fascinated by how Kustodiev plays with opacity and solidity, as though he uses the formal restraints to channel psychological intimacy. Curator: I was too quick in speaking of trauma. Perhaps this Russian Avant-Garde work allowed Kustodiev to process his social world, his private life, and the confluence between his interior thoughts, family connection, and societal shift. Editor: Thank you. This drawing presents such a rich distillation of human experience, one that’s all the more powerful for its delicate medium. Curator: An amazing use of basic means for the highest expression, exactly.