On the promenade 1922

Boris Kustodiev created this drawing of two figures on a walk with pen and ink. It's so immediate and spontaneous, you can almost see him rapidly sketching outside. There is a real contrast between the looseness of the marks in the landscape and the crisp, tight hatching and cross-hatching that describes the figures. The lines aren't just describing what he sees, they're also defining a mood. I love how the sky is rendered with these confident, radiating lines which suggest sunlight, but could just as easily evoke a feeling of unease. The figure on the right, leaning casually on his walking stick, throws a dark shadow ahead of him, whilst the shadow of the figure on the left is barely visible. I think of the drawings of Alfred Kubin, who was a contemporary of Kustodiev and who also used drawing as a way of exploring the darker sides of human experience. Art is an ongoing conversation across time, an embrace of ambiguity, and a search for new perspectives.