Artist of the Month; Ivan Bilibin

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Only ten days until we move to our new house, so blogging isn't much of a priority these days, not least with everything packed down in boxes. In the meantime however, there is time to wander the googlescape and find interesting artists, which I have recently done with Ivan Bilibin. I'd come across a few of Bilibin's works in the past but never learned his name until I happened to chance across his painting 'Firebird' (see first image above) whilst I was looking for references.

It took nano seconds to realise that here was a new source of inspiration. Bilibin worked in a similar style to many of my older favourites, but often with a greater clarity and a pleasing attention to deviant monochrome forms. Add to that his choice of subject and you get Carl Larson's style married to Alphonse Mucha's.

Bilibin worked as an illustrator and a stage designer. He studied under Ilya Repin (lucky man!) and he was the designer for the 1909 première production of Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov's The Golden Cockerel.

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