Part of a series of pictures I made, inspired by the drawings of a little Russian boy named Onfim who lived 800 years ago. In one of his drawings, he depicted himself as a “beast,” so I decided to create a scene of him transforming into one.
Onfim: The schoolwork and doodles of a Novgorodian kid living in the 13th century
These two are my favourite drawings of Onfim’s – they were drawn on birch bark, hundreds of years ago, by a kid who was probably procrastinating on actually doing any work.
The first one is Onfim writing a letter to his friend, Danilo, with the masterful illustration of a beast, and the second is Onfim and his dad (I think!).
I’m just a history nerd who finds it so interesting to look back and see how the day-to-day lives of long-gone people played out.
It’s fun to laugh and relate to someone who would likely be amazed at the kind of technology you’re using just to see what they left behind.
But I bet Onfim would probably be the kind of person to take it in his stride, with whatever his equivalent of “Cool!” would be – I mean, it seems like he kinda just did what he wanted. Practice the alphabet? No thanks, I’ll doodle a picture of a cool beast!
