Мир искусства и хохлома - about Russian art influence

The forests of southwestern Poland were eerie from the outside, yet inside—when the sun hit just right—gold was everywhere, overwhelming and warm. Even the hanging spiders, those fat ones with white crosses on their backs, perched on orb-like webs, seemed softer somehow, as if they were just about to serve you hot tea with lemon on a cold day.

Not much Romanticism here, yet I still reach for art to recreate that childhood forest mood—a place thick with endless birch trees, with Baltic pines growing here and there.

The one artist who, to me, perfectly captured the atmosphere of the forest is Ivan Bilibin, the Russian stage designer and illustrator of the Mir Iskusstva (Мир искусства) movement.

The color palette is inspired by the Russian folk wood painting technique—Khokhloma (хохлома), which I didn't particularly appreciate as a little girl. I still remember the carved wooden Easter eggs my grandmother bought from a Russian woman at a local market—black, intense, and bursting with bright patterns of flowers, leaves, and berries.

Now, as a grown-up, I understand them.