“Koschei the Deathless”
This fantastical watercolor piece is by the Russian Art Nouveau illustrator, Ivan Bilibin, from circa 1902 and is titled “Koschei the Deathless”. It’s from The Death of Koschei the Deathless or Marya Morevna, a Russian fairy tale. This image depicts Koschei as he is riding his magic horse through the mountains and forests of Old Russia.
Bilibin illustrated a series of Russian folktales in his mid-20s, including this one, which gained him notoriety. In these fairy tales, Bilibin dressed his figures in traditional costume and used the mountains and forests of Old Russia for the backgrounds. Often, he even used traditional designs and motifs to border the scenes he was illustrating.
They were an immediate success and kick-started his career. Bilibin was part of the greater Russian moderne movement; the Art Nouveau movement that spread through Russia in the late nineteenth to early twentieth centuries.
This story was first written down by the Russian ethnographer, Alexander Afanasyev, and tells the tale of Koschei, an evil immortal being who terrorizes young women. In the story, the hero Ivan marries Marya Morevna, a warrior princess. Marya goes to war and tells her new husband not to open the dungeon door while she is away. He gets curious, as people are wont to do, and opens the dungeon door to find a starved giant chained to the wall who is named Koschei. After Ivan brings water to the giant, the giant regains his magic and strength and breaks out of the dungeon.
After escaping, Koschei kidnaps Marya, and when Ivan tries to rescue his wife, Koschei kills him. Ivan’s remains are put in a barrel and thrown out to sea, but he is luckily rejuvenated by his sisters’ husbands. Once alive again, Ivan hears that Koschei has a magic horse. Ivan goes to Baba Yaga, passes her tests, and receives a magic horse of his own, which he rides as he fights, and this time kills Koschei. Afterwards, Koschei’s body is burned, and Ivan frees Marya, his wife.
The original “Koschei the Deathless” is in a private collection.
For more on Ivan Bilibin, please visit his short biography here.
You can find more artists to learn about here.
