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Emotions through unique color and form in Wassily Kandinsky’s abstract art
Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944) was a Russian painter credited as being among the first to truly venture into abstract art. He persisted in expressing his internal world of abstraction despite negative criticism from his peers.
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Isaac Levitan: Simple, Unpretentious landscapes through his eyes
At the end of the nineteenth century the landscape was one of the foremost genres in Russian painting. It was this influence that shaped Levitan’s art, an art fully and by right symbolic of the finest achievements of Russian landscape painting.
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Spotlight on Marc Chagall
The text below is the excerpt from the book Marc Chagall, written by Victoria Charles, published by Parkstone International. Through one of those curious reversals of fate, one more exile has regained his native land. Since the exhibition of his work at the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts in Moscow in 1987 and which gave rise to an extraordinary popular fervour, Marc Chagall has experienced a second birth. Here we have a painter, perhaps the most unusual painter of the twentieth century, who at last, attained the object of his inner quest: the love of his Russia. Thus, the hope expressed in the last lines of My Life, the autobiographical narrative which the…
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Christmas might be over for many, but for Orthodox Christian communities, the festivities are just beginning
The text below is the excerpt of the book Icons, written by Nikodim Pavlovich Kondakov, published by Parkstone International. Among graphic arts, the icon took first place in Russian life. Apart from the early Novgorod wall-painting, we may call the icon the chief expression of religious thought and popular feeling as early as the fourteenth century. Later, when wall-painting became subordinate to icon-painting, the icon became the one and only symbol of faith. In view of its special significance and its derivation from the Byzantine model, the Russian icon takes its place as the continuation of a high artistic tradition and in its development offers an unparalleled example of artistic…
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"Art must be an expression of love or it is nothing" – Marc Chagall
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The future is black!
A simple black square by Russian artist Kazimir Malevich was first presented to the public in 1915. What a sensation! At the same time the image caused both incomprehension and rejection – the viewer could neither make out representational features nor see shapes or lines in this composition. While the First World War was already raging in Europe, Malevich had created an unprecedented painting implying a dark premonition of the future. Today Black Suprematic Square by Malevich is an icon of modern painting mentioned in countless books about 20th-century art. During his life the artist himself referred to his masterpiece several times in his work, just like in his self-portrait…
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Breaking up and making up
When I think of the relationship between Russia and Germany the first thing that comes to mind is Carrie and Mr Big or maybe Ross and Rachel for those of you that never dug into Sex and the City – in which case, shame on you. The on-again, off-again saga of their affairs is almost too much for the common person to handle. They’re on – they’re politicking together and mutually militaristic; Russia is sharing her energy sources because of her dependence on Germany’s finances. If that’s not a relationship, I don’t know what is! And then Leo von Caprivi had to go and cut Russia out, ruining the three-way…
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The Secret to Being a Great Artist…
Serov has been hailed as the defining Russian artist of the transitional period between the late 19th and early 20th centuries, perhaps the best portrait painter in Russian art, whose “early rise to the top is almost unparalleled in the history of art”. What factors contributed to this artist’s greatness? Could it be an inherent talent? He was born into a creative family and immersed in an artistic environment from childhood; indeed, both his parents were famous composers. Or, could it be his drive and his determination to succeed? There’s no doubt that Serov was a hard worker and a competitive artist, who strove to be at the forefront of…
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Ilya Repin: Stalin’s Golden Boy
Ukrainian-born Ilya Repin’s life spanned the turn of the 20th century, a particularly turbulent period in Russian history. A member of the Itinerants, he is one of the most celebrated social realist painters of all time, painting the lives of poor peasants and revolutionaries in exquisite detail, eschewing the burgeoning contemporary European impressionist movement. His paintings are a satirical commentary on the contemporary society of the Russian Empire, depicting scenes of peasantry (‘Barge Haulers on the Volga’), political and military scenes (‘Demonstration 17 October 1905’) and Cossack life (‘The Reply of the Zaporozhian Cossacks to Sultan Mahmoud IV’). Soon after his death in 1930, Repin had developed into a cult…
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