I love Frederic Gruger’s drawing of a confrontation between a Russian princess and a group of leering Bolshevik invaders.
Gruger was famous for making paintings using nothing but a Wolff pencil, cheap cardboard and spit. (Later, he upgraded from spit to water and when he really began making money he added watercolor wash accents.)
Gruger’s illustrations were striking for his ability to achieve rich velvety tones, but he also knew how to draw with a pencil point:
Gruger staged his picture with all kinds of perfect details and lighting. Here is an artist who was firmly in control of the room.
But the feature I’d like to point out today is the faces of the mob in the background (reproduced here several times larger than the originals).
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| In the 1920s, without the benefit of the internet, Gruger captured the ruddy smiles of Eurasian peasants |
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 Each of these goons in the front row has a distinctive face, but note that as the faces get further into the background they dissipate into abstraction.
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The painting on the wall in the background equally blurs into abstraction (with nice strong shapes).
