Tag: russia

Nicholas Kalmakoff

Illustrations by Nicholas Kalmakoff

Born in Nervi on the Italian Riviera in 1873, Nicolai Kalmakoff was born into a privileged existence. His father was a Russian General; his mother of Italian descent. Unlike most Russian aristocrats, he was baptized a Roman Catholic rather than a Russian Orthodox (due, no doubt, to his Italian mother).

Kalmakoff’s German governess was fond of Grimm’s fairy tales, and these left a lasting impression on his childhood imagination. As Kalmakoff later recounted: “She made me live in an imaginary world taken from the Brothers Grimm with a sprinkling of E.T.A. Hoffmann. I devoured those tales with delight. Around the age of nine I would often wander into the furthermost room of our house, where I would carefully conceal myself. Then, alone in the darkness, I would call upon the devil to appear.”

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 Igor Kravtsov

 

Igor Kravtsov, Seven Oil Paintings on Canvas

The works of Igor Kravtsov radiate his attitude not only to his art but to life as well. The characters in his paintings look at you pointedly, they are very much self-aware and as if slightly withdrawn. They are haunted by memories of the past. They keep coming back in their memories to tremendous trials and tribulations of their fathers and mothers. They think of young men who perished during wars.

Igor Kravtsov had felt great closeness to them: it was his essence, his background, his foundation. Hence, the autobiographic tension of his art, the spirited metaphors, the precise forms that do not allow for any approximation. His canvases radiate his understanding of art as a serious, responsible undertaking that only people with vast experience could manage.

Dimitry Zhilinsky

 

Dmitri Dmitriev Zhilinksy, “Bathing Soldiers (The Builders of the Bridge)”, Oil on Canvas, 1959

Dmitri Dmitriev Zhilinksy studied at the Institute for Research and Decorative Art in Moscow from 1944 to 1946 and at the Surikov Institute of Art, where he graduated in 1951. He was strongly influenced by his teachers Pavel Korin and Nikolai Chernyshev . Zhilinsky belonged to the Artists Union of the Soviet state which sought to develop the socialist realism style of art incorporating influences from Italian neorealism.

Wassily Kandinsky

Wassily Kandinsky, One of a Series of Color Studies of Squares and Circles

Wassily Kandinsky produced his early work in Russia, his mature and most revolutionary work in Germany, and his later work in France. He invented a language of abstract forms with which he replaced the forms of nature. His ultimate intention was to mirror the universe in his visionary world. He felt that painting possessed the same power as music and that sign, line, and color ought to correspond to the vibrations of the human soul.