1903
Paper, gouache, graphite pencil
61 х 46

The figure of the lady featured in the picture takes up the foreground of the canvas, as if blocking the movement towards the air and light pouring into the windows of a manor house. One gets the feeling of being caught in a trap from which it is impossible to escape. Flat, as if cut out of an antique portrait, its arms hanging dead, the make-belive figure is no more than the artist's materialized imagination, a lifeless image, similar to the dog embroidered on a cushion. The red blot of cushion , the black emptiness of space behind the lady's back, her lifeless white silhouette create a weird, sickly anemic combination of colours. The linear frame of the image is showing through everywhere from under deadly, half-effaced whitewash, like the skeleton of a mechanical structure. The ghost lady's eyes, full of life, and her parched red lips clash with the frozen composition and are frightening in their vitality. A meeting with the past hides a destructive force, which terrifies a living soul. The secret of the past sheds its veil, the illusions disappear. The picture reflects the perplexity of the artist, seeking to hide from the coming 20th century in the shadow of the past, but no less afraid of the echo of time past.