ONE LOVELY DRAWING, part 73

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 expertly staged his picture with 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).

In the 1920s, without the benefit of the internet, Gruger captured the ruddy smiles of Eurasian peasants

             

Each of these ruffians in the front row has a distinctive face, but note that as the faces get further into the background they dissipate into abstraction.  They become shapes in a composition.

The painting on the wall in the background is another example-- rather than draw a representational image, Gruger blurs it into abstraction (with nice strong compositional shapes). 

Gruger's prioritization of elements is part of what holds this picture together so tightly, and makes Gruger an artist, not just a draftsman.