Ball

Mediums: watercolor, ink, pencil, cardboard.
Location: State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow (Russia).

The painting was created in ocher tones characteristic of the author; in general, its composition resembles a frontally placed decoration. The heavy architecture – something middle between a medieval castle and a religious building – is close to the foreground; the place, where there was or will be a ball, is deserted. A joker’s figure in a cap, lonely and tiny in comparison with the overhanging stone arches and thick walls, seems helpless. The feeling of anxiety is enhanced by the shadows that lie in the high arches and deep niches.