Biliban
One of the things I enjoy doing is set design. Building and painting backdrops for plays is something that I have done since high school. I have worked for a couple of local theater groups and most recently for Treehouse Children’s Museum. Every fall the Treehouse Troupe does a set of three plays for children, written, directed and acted by employees of the museum. The most recent production is an adaption of a Russian fairy tale titled, The Princess Frog. When asked to paint some 8-foot tall flats, I decided to keep the Russian theme and paint them in the style of the great Russian illustrator, Ivan Biliban. Biliban was born in St. Petersburg in 1876 and later traveled through the north of Russia and became interested in old architecture and folklore. In 1899 he published a book with illustrations of Russian fairy tales, which made him famous. His style was reminiscent of Arthur Rackham and Edmund Dulac, both contemporaries of the time. During the first Russian Revolution of 1905 he drew revolutionary cartoons, but when the communists came to power in 1918, he moved from Russia and eventually settled in Paris, France where he painted decorations for private homes and churches. He painted interiors for the Soviet Embassy there and longing for his homeland, he finally returned to Russia in 1936 where he lectured at the Soviet Academy of Arts until the beginning of World War II. Biliban died during the horrific German siege of Leningrad in 1942 and was buried in a common grave.
One of Biliban’s other favorite things to do was set design. So using his style for some forest background flats was no great stretch. His stylistic renderings of forests as backgrounds for his folklore paintings is something that is readily recognizable. Since this set design art had no need of extreme detail I was able to freely splash on some paint. It is quite liberating to be able to do something 8 feet tall rather than a smaller illustration of less then a couple of feet. In other words, it was a great deal of fun and having fun with your work is very appealing to me these days.
