How Pavel Tretyakov competed with the emperor
Before the revolution, patronage of the arts was considered not only charitable, but also beneficial for the donor himself, and the point here was not taxes at all. According to…

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The dramatic fate of Princess Tenisheva
June 1 (old style - May 20) marks the 150th anniversary of the birth of an outstanding woman whose contribution to the development of Russian culture can hardly be overestimated.…

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VARIETIES OF GENRE STILL LIFE
Still life (with FR. nature morte-dead, inanimate nature) - artistic depiction of various household items. In the XV-XVI centuries still life was considered as part of a historical or genre…

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What secret is hidden by the canvas “Cornflowers” by Igor Grabar

Igor Grabar is known not only as an art critic and restorer, but also as a talented impressionist artist. Under his leadership, the Tretyakov Gallery turned into a world-famous museum complex, and the multivolume History of Russian Art was written by his own efforts. Much is known about the professional activities of Grabar, but the details of his personal life are still shrouded in mystery. The key to its solution can serve as his picture “Cornflowers”.

Art for Igor Grabar has always been the subject of knowledge and creation. As a child, Igor showed a passion for drawing. According to his parents, he harassed piles of paper and enthusiastically painted with paints. When the boy grew up, he began to take painting lessons, spent hours in the workshop. After – he entered the Lyceum of Tsarevich Nikolai in Moscow. Igor’s childhood passed in the Ryazan province, and moving to Moscow opened up new horizons for him. Continue reading

People-birds, beautiful ladies and the joy of life

They worked in the harsh conditions of socialist realism, but paintings with farmers and tractors are not their style. Their paintings were crushed by bulldozers, not allowed to go to exhibitions, forgotten for many years. Some of them were lucky, and they received professional recognition, participation in exhibitions, posters mentioning their names … but few today remember their work. Artists of the Soviet era combined art and family – or preferred the workshop to a family hearth, searched for their own path, fought, dreamed … and, of course, did it.

Alexandra Beltsova was born in Latvia. During the years of training, she met the artist Roman Suta, who became her husband and associate. Together they traveled to Berlin, where they met many avant-garde artists, and to Paris, where they participated in exhibitions along with Picasso and Le Corbusier. Continue reading

Creativity for the Mentally Ill: A Book That Changed History

Sometimes you can hear such a statement that in order to create a masterpiece, you must be either a genius or a madman. Tarragon – the hero of the play “Waiting for Godot” by Samuel Becket, said that “we are all born crazy. And some of them remain … “Yes, and where is the line that separates genius from madness? In 1922, a German psychiatrist published a book in which he showed the work of the mentally ill, and this book made a splash among both the psychiatric society and artists.

The fact that some very talented, and even brilliant people suffered from various mental disorders is not news. So, it is known that Gogol suffered from manic-depressive psychosis, and Leo Tolstoy often had bouts of depression that alternated with numerous phobias. Maxim Gorky was prone to vagrancy and pyromania, and some experts insist that Lermontov suffered from a form of schizophrenia that he inherited from his mother. Continue reading

What secret is hidden by the canvas "Cornflowers" by Igor Grabar
Igor Grabar is known not only as an art critic and restorer, but also as a talented impressionist artist. Under his leadership, the Tretyakov Gallery turned into a world-famous museum…

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Creativity for the Mentally Ill: A Book That Changed History
Sometimes you can hear such a statement that in order to create a masterpiece, you must be either a genius or a madman. Tarragon - the hero of the play…

...

19th Century Girl Albums
The young ladies of the 19th century were not so different from the modern ones: they also needed attention, recognition, evidence of sympathy from friends and, of course, a cordial…

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