Monthly Archives: June 2019
About artistic emigration from Russia to the West (1920-1950s)
Russian Russian emigration’s artistic heritage is still an important issue in the concept of the development of Russian art in the XX century. The contribution of individual representatives has not yet been sufficiently studied, as it is often complicated by the disparity of collections-the exhibits not only adorn the collections of museums in Europe or the United States, but also are in private collections, from time to time becoming the top positions of the world’s leading auction houses.
The artistic process after the Revolution of 1917 was torn in two – part remained in Russia, the other began to develop in emigration. It is impossible to say unequivocally that there were no analogues in the world history of art of such a mass Exodus until now. There were many examples of artists working in a different national environment, and one of them is the formation of the international Paris school. Continue reading
Artist Konstantin Andreevich Somov
Konstantin Somov is one of the representatives of Russian symbolism. The composition of the artist’s style was largely influenced by his training in the Paris Studio Colorassi (1897-1899), it was then that he mastered the lessons of modernity and French Rococo. The scenes of his paintings resemble the gallant balls and masquerades that were characteristic of the past XVIII century. Modernity in his works is mystically connected with the previous era, the genre scenes of his paintings are reminiscences of the past century, his characters vaguely resemble the puppets of Watteau, Boucher and Fragonard, but unlike his predecessors, the artist gives the images a mystical ghostliness rather than elegant refinement. V. A. Lenyashin rightly noted that the origins of Somov “beyond the past days”, much deeper, more hidden: Botticelli, Watteau, Hoffman[.
Ghostly-transparent eroticism, without which Somov could not think of art, then permeates the irreparably spicy pages of the “Book of the Marquise”, and appears (like a Casanova doll) in the naively defiant and mechanically Frank appearance of Columbine. Continue reading
