Victor Borisov-Musatov (1870–1905)
Borisov-Musatov V. Self-Portrait with Sister. 1898
Self-Portrait with Sister
1898
Tempera and oil on canvas. 143 x 177
Victor Borisov-Musatov’s works generally lack a developed subject. The master’s elegiac art is permeated with sorrowful reflections and notes of tranquillity. The artist deprives reality of concrete features, almost implying the existence of parallel worlds. In Self-Portrait with Sister, his sister is like the ghostly resident of an old, historical estate. The composition seems to have frozen in time, like a frame from a film reel, with the figures on the point of slipping away into the space beyond the clouds.