Willows near the palace 1923

Anna Ostroumova-Lebedeva made this striking woodcut, "Willows near the Palace" using black ink on paper. It's amazing how she builds up these masses of foliage with just a few simple marks. The way she contrasts the solid blacks with the white paper creates such a dynamic, almost vibrating surface. Look closely at how she renders the willows on the right; the lines are so close together, it almost feels like you could reach out and touch the texture of the bark. Then compare that to the smooth, flat surface of the palace in the background. It’s a push-pull between the tactile and the representational. You get the sense that Anna is really interested in the process of artmaking; that interplay between materials and the image they make. This kind of graphic approach reminds me of German Expressionist woodcuts, but there's something uniquely Russian about it too. It feels very graphic and architectural, but also quite poetic. Art, like a willow tree, grows and bends in unexpected ways.