The Russian Mistique

I love this painting... a copy used to hang at our dacha in Ukraine.

On Saturday we attended the Russische sprookjes, volksverhalen en legenden exhibition at the Groninger Museum. It was a collection of a number of famous Russian artists that worked on illustrating old folklore, stories and legends. I was pleasantly surprized at the amount of paintings and drawing that were brought in. Ahhh was so good to see all the illustrations to the stories mom read to me everyday at badtime. Russian folklore is incredibly rich. I mean you have your beautiful girl, the good looking prince, mystical animals and forests that help our main charachters fight the bad guys, Kashei and Baba Yaga. Then of course there are countless humourous stories featuring Ivan, the idiot who always outsmarts everyone! High sea adventures, stories of glory, honor and bravery. Ahhhh....

Here are three princesess representing Gold, Silver and Iron. Just to illustrate how Iron has always been thought of as an extremely important element.

I was excited to show Vito a bit more of the culture from which I'm coming from... though I think the only thing I convinced him more is of my snobby, elitist attitude :P So what if I mean it when I say I'm a princess. To be perfectly honest (and don't go around repeating this) I would also be very happy with a simple countess title. (See, don't say I'm a snob.)

There were also a big exhibition of Chinese ancient bronzes. Very prettily done, with mysterious white gauze curtains... hanging mysteriously 'round. Of course Vito and I couldn't resist playing some hide and seek. Almost knocked one of the stands over...

And... here is me with my true treasure find! A scarf that I got in Argentina, I met the designer who is awesome, her entire line is based on Patagonia inspiration.