Sketches of scenery for Aleksey Verstovsky's Askold's Grave, Mikhail Glinka's Ruslan and Ludmilla, Sadko by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov 1912

Ivan Bilibin made these set design sketches for Russian operas between 1912 and 1914, probably with watercolor, gouache, and ink on paper. They are all about storytelling through artifice. I love the way he’s organized the compositions, stacking different scenes, like stage flats, one behind the other. In the top image, see how the foregrounded, gnarly tree trunks frame a lake and distant buildings? The whole thing has the feel of a stage set, or maybe even a child's pop-up book. The buildings are not very realistic, but are full of texture and surface. You can see every little stroke and mark. I find this so charming, because it foregrounds the activity of painting, of making, instead of trying to create an illusion. For me, Bilibin’s work anticipates the graphic novel and artists such as David Hockney, who also explored set design. Art is always a conversation, across time, across disciplines, opening up possibilities for seeing.