Learn Hardcore Russian: Я купил у художницы маленькую открытку с видом на порт. - I bought a small postcard with a view of the port from the female painter.

Russian often uses у + Genitive to show that something is at someone’s place / in someone’s possession, and then with buying or taking it means “from someone”:

купил у художницы – bought (it) from the artist
взял у брата – took (it) from my brother

От tends to emphasize movement away from a source or cause (from, away from, because of):

письмо от художницы – a letter from the artist
убежал от собаки – ran away from the dog

So:

купил у художницы is the normal, idiomatic way to say bought from the artist.
купил от художницы is ungrammatical in this sense.

Why is it художницы and not художница or художнице?

The base word is художница (female artist, painter).
After у, the noun must be in the Genitive case:

у кого? – у художницы

Declension (singular):

Nominative (who?): художница
Genitive (of whom?): художницы
Dative (to whom?): художнице
Accusative (whom?): художницу
Instrumental (with whom?): художницей
Prepositional (about whom?): (о) художнице

Since у requires Genitive, we get художницы.

What is the difference between художник and художница?

художник: traditionally male artist, but very often used as gender-neutral in professional contexts (like “artist” in English).
художница: specifically female artist.

In everyday speech:

If you see a woman painting on the street, people might naturally say художница.
In neutral or formal/professional speech, people often use художник even about a woman, especially when the gender is not important.

This sentence emphasizes that the seller is a woman, so it uses художница.

Why is it маленькую открытку and not маленькая открытка?

Открытка (postcard) is the direct object of купил (bought what?).

Direct objects typically take the Accusative case.
Открытка is feminine, 1st-declension:

Nominative: маленькая открытка (subject)
Accusative: маленькую открытку (object)

The adjective маленький must agree with открытка in gender, number, and case:

Feminine singular accusative of маленький is маленькую, matching открытку.

So купил (что?) маленькую открытку is the correct object form.

Why is the noun открытку ending in -у?

The base form is открытка (Nominative, feminine):

Nominative (subject): открытка
Accusative (direct object): открытку

Feminine nouns ending in -а / -я usually change to -у / -ю in the Accusative singular when they are direct objects (and inanimate vs animate doesn’t matter for feminine).

Here, купил что? – открытку, so it must be Accusative: открытку.

Why is the verb купил and not покупал?

Both are past tense of покупать / купить (to buy), but they differ by aspect:

купил – perfective: a completed, single action (“bought” – it’s done).
покупал – imperfective: ongoing, repeated, or background (“was buying / used to buy / was in the process of buying”).

In this sentence, the speaker talks about one completed purchase: they bought a specific postcard. Perfective купил is the natural choice.

Examples:

Вчера я купил открытку. – Yesterday I bought a postcard (and that’s it, action completed).
Раньше я часто покупал открытки. – I used to buy postcards often (repeated, habitual).

Why is it купил and not купила or купило?

In Russian, past tense verbs agree in gender and number with the subject.

я купил – “I bought” (speaker is male)
я купила – “I bought” (speaker is female)
мы купили – “we bought” (plural, any gender)

So купил shows that the speaker is grammatically masculine.
If the speaker were female, the sentence would be:

Я купила у художницы маленькую открытку с видом на порт.

What does the phrase с видом на порт literally mean?

Literally:

с – with
видом – (a) view (Instrumental case of вид)
на порт – of / onto the port (Accusative after на)

So it’s “with a view onto the port”, which in natural English is “with a view of the port”.

It’s a very common pattern:

открытка с видом на море – postcard with a view of the sea
комната с видом на парк – a room with a view of the park

Why is видом in the Instrumental case?

The structure is с + Instrumental, meaning “with something”.

с чем? – с видом (“with what?” – “with a view”)

So вид (view) becomes видом in the Instrumental:

Nominative: вид (a view)
Instrumental: видом (with a view)

The whole phrase с видом на порт = with a view of the port.

Why is порт in the Accusative after на, and why does it look the same as the Nominative?

Preposition на can take either Accusative or Prepositional, with different meanings:

на + Accusative – direction, goal, surface, or orientation onto / toward something:
- с видом на порт – a view towards / of the port
- смотреть на море – to look at the sea
на + Prepositional – location on / in / at:
- на порту (much rarer; you’d more likely say в порту) – at the port
- на море – at / on the sea (as in “on vacation at the seaside”)

Порт is a masculine inanimate noun. For such nouns:

Nominative singular: порт
Accusative singular: порт (same form)

So it is Accusative, but it just happens to look like Nominative.

Could we say с видом порта or с видом порту instead of с видом на порт?

No, those are not idiomatic here.

The usual pattern is с видом на + Accusative to express “with a view of / onto something”:

с видом на порт
с видом на реку – with a view of the river
с видом на город – with a view of the city

С видом порта (Genitive) would sound unnatural in this meaning.
С видом порту is grammatically wrong (wrong case after the preposition and wrong preposition).

Can we change the word order, for example: Я купил маленькую открытку у художницы с видом на порт?

Yes, Russian word order is fairly flexible. All of these are grammatically correct:

Я купил у художницы маленькую открытку с видом на порт.
Я купил маленькую открытку у художницы с видом на порт.
У художницы я купил маленькую открытку с видом на порт.

The basic meaning stays the same. Differences are subtle shifts of emphasis:

First version: neutral, slightly highlighting where you bought it (у художницы) before what you bought.
Second version: more natural if your main focus is what you bought (маленькую открытку).
Third version: emphasizes у художницы (“It was from the artist that I bought a small postcard with a view of the port”).

For a beginner, the first two are the most typical.

Can we drop маленькую or replace it with another adjective? Does маленькую sound stylistically marked?

You can:

Drop it: Я купил у художницы открытку с видом на порт. – I bought a postcard with a view of the port.
Replace it with a synonym:
- небольшую открытку – a small-ish, not large postcard
- красивую открытку – a beautiful postcard
- цветную открытку – a color postcard

Маленькую is neutral and common. It simply adds the detail that the postcard is small; it doesn’t sound poetic or strange.