Leonid visited Palestine with a group of commissioned artists in 1924. There are some wonderful images like this pastel of Rachel's Tomb [1], which he must have done after he returned home because the group was only there for a week, travelling over the country by bus. Pastel images are too fragile to carry around with you.
He will have just recorded the colours for himself [2, 3] and remembered them. Or even done tiny little sketches like this one [4], which is actually a view of Jerusalem. But what's interesting here is the colour, this sort of bruised sky the hour before dusk, where he's jotted in the bottom right corner: ‘verno’, which means ‘it's correct. That's right’ – a word he often encouraged himself with, as he was drawing: ‘verno, verno!’
The Staircase and Hallway
Colours of Palestine
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He visited Palestine in 1924. And there are some wonderful images like this pastel of Rachel's Tomb, which he must have done after he returned home because he was only there for a week and he was travelling and pastel is very fragile so you can't move around with it.
And he will have just recorded the colours for himself and remembered them. or even done tiny little sketches like this one, which is actually a view of Jerusalem. But what's interesting here is the colour, this sort of bruised sky the hour before dusk, where he's jotted in the corner ‘verna’, which means ‘it's correct. That's right’ - a phrase that he often encouraged himself as he was drawing: ‘verna verna!’
