For Vassiliev, a painting or drawing consists of three different modes: the world we live in (on the viewer’s side of the picture plane), the world of memory and loss (on the other side of the picture plane), and then the picture plane itself, which mediates between those two worlds. Over the years, Vassiliev used a number of formal devices that highlight these different modes or that collapse them to eliminate the barrier between the viewer and the world of memory and loss. Below are several examples.
