Bienvenue to online magazine about Design, Art, Lifestyle & Culture. Pure aestheticism, nothing more.

Arkhip Kuindzhi. Impressions of the exposition

Post_106_Kuindzhi_en

The retrospective of the artist’s creative path is always an interesting phenomenon, when time, events, searches, experiments, masterful searches are passing before your eyes. it creates some unique opportunity to live and feel, or just watch and embrace the whole lifeof the artist, even if difficult, but in general rich and harmonious.

In the autumn of this year, the unique full-scale exhibition of Arkhip Kuindzhi opened in the Tretyakov Gallery, he was possibly the most mysterious and independent artist of his time, independent, creatively (free from academic dogmas, from imposed stamps).

images_106_Kuindzhi_1

Arkhip Ivanovich was born in a poor family in Mariupol, early became an orphan, but he managed with his talent and tenacity to rise from a pupil of a retoucher in Taganrog to a teacher at the Academy of Arts and the landlord of apartment buildings in St. Petersburg. After going through a difficult life, and getting  a millionaire, he remained a modest man, allocating funds for his gifted students, novice artists.

images_106_Kuindzhi_2

The curators managed to collect the works of the painter from different museum collections and create an exposition on three floors, dividing it not into time frames, but into three main themes of creativity. The gravitation of the earth. Mystery of the night. Ahead of time.

In addition to the well-known masterpieces, there are small etudes, unknown to a wide range, but very curious.

images_106_Kuindzhi_5

Everyone knows (who is not familiar yet, a link to a biographical note at the bottom of this text) that Kuindzhi constantly experimented with painting materials to achieve a result when there would a feeling that the light of the sun or moon is real on the canvas. The world was painted there lights up with bright rays or gentle shimmer. It is so beautiful and so real that it seems something unreal. No wonder some contemporaries believed that he sold his soul to the devil or bought a special “moon” paint abroad.

images_106_Kuindzhi_6

 

The first few rooms are dedicated to the theme “light”, it is dissolving in the forest, illuminating a clearing, playing with highlights on the trunks of age-old birch trees. “He made us love the birches,” wrote one of Kuinji’s contemporaries.

The second part of the exhibition, called “Mystery of the Night” by the organizers, begins with the halls of all kinds of sunsets, at first it is fascinating, but then you start to get tired and the first strong impressions are dulled. And when you go to the hall where “Moonlight night on the Dnieper” hangs and three more of its author’s repetitions, the “wow” effect is not wiped out, it simply does not exist.

images_106_Kuindzhi_3

Arkhip Kuindzhi himself, in order to show the picture for the public, rented a whole hall of the Society for the Encouragement of Artists (now the House of Artists) on Bolshaya Morskaya in St. Petersburg and arranged an exhibition of one picture! The walls were covered with black cloth, the lamp itself was aimed at the picture itself. Painted moon flashed mystical path on the water surface. Some visitors tried to look behind the picture to make sure there were no light bulbs on the back side. No, the canvas was painted by mere mortal and simple oil paints.

images_106_Kuindzhi_7

The success of the exhibition was huge, the queue lined up along the street.

And it is strange, why the curators decided to deprive us of the same impression?

In the same room, the only work on the biblical story “Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane.” Jesus goes along a dark alley, only the light of the moon illuminates him in this dark world, along his path, what kind of shadows, trees, bushes – no, these are the shadows of people looking at the walking figure. This effect   is almost not visible on the reproduction, only directly, standing in front of the picture, peering into the darkness, the thickets of the garden turn into figures.

The last part of the exhibition about how Kuindzhi in his bold creative search was ahead of his time, anticipating the post-impressionists, Fauvists and, to some extent, representatives of Art Deco.

The conclusion here is only one, you need to go and see for yourself. Kuindzhi led a closed lifestyle, few people he allowed to go to his workshop. At the end of his life he was almost a recluse. Now, the organizers of the exhibition give viewers a unique opportunity to enter the doors of the workshop of the great Russian experimenter, the painter, once closed to visitors.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arkhip_Kuindzhi

Similar posts
  • Goddess and biomechanical horse on th... The opening ceremony of the 2024 Olympic Games was controversial, but it was certainly not boring. The episode with the appearance of the goddess Sequana, The Seine is named after Sequana, the goddess of water in Gallo-Celtic mythology, caused mixed impressions. Let’s figure it out? The ancient Gauls considered the lands around the source of [...]
  • From the heart to the hands: Dolce�... The exhibition of one of the most famous creative duos in the world of fashion is held from April 7 to July 31 at the Palazzo Reale in Milan. The exposition presents an almost immersive show to the audience, the visitor is practically not allowed to get distracted or bored, he is led from room [...]
  • Visions and Ecstasies in Art of the X... The theme of appearing visions on the edge of dreaming and wakefulness has long occupied the minds of mankind. In these transitional moments, a person can come to an insight not only how to solve some long-thinking task, an unexpected artistic image or plot, or motive of a music , but also visual and even [...]
  • Expansion of space as a new tool for ... If you are not afraid of expanding the functions of AI (artificial intelligence) and its implementation in the creative process, then the news will please you. DALL·E’s editing feature already allows you to make changes to a generated or uploaded image, a feature known as Inpainting. Now with Outpainting, users can expand the original image, [...]
  • The film of the week or how to retur... The film of the week or how to return the taste for life The thriller Scott Mann’s “Fall” is naturally not a new topic, but conquering the peak, setting records and thrills always beckon the human soul, because this is a kind of filling with the meaning of life, and in the case of the [...]

No Comments Yet

Leave a Reply

  • English
  • Русский
  • Français

Recent Comments

    Рейтинг@Mail.ru