Female image. Illustration to Dante's "Vita Nova" 1975

Hryhorii Havrylenko made this illustration to Dante's "Vita Nova" using delicate pen strokes. I just imagine him, maybe in a small room, hunched over the paper, each line a little meditation. It’s all about line here, isn’t it? The way he builds up the form with these tiny, almost frantic strokes – it reminds me of Giacometti, but with a softer touch. Look at the way the lines define the woman's face, so simple yet so expressive. What was Havrylenko thinking when he made this? Was he trying to capture the essence of Dante’s Beatrice, her ethereal beauty? Or was he more interested in the act of drawing itself, the way the pen moves across the page? Artists, we're all in this ongoing conversation, you know? We riff off each other, steal ideas, and make them our own. And that's how art keeps evolving, like a big, messy, beautiful conversation.