Алиреза Карими Могаддам родился в 1975 году в Тегеране. Он получил профессиональное образование в качестве художника-графика и сотрудничал с многими иранскими журналами и газетами. В начале 2019 года он начал публиковать на своих страницах в соцсетях рисунки, главным героем которых стал его любимый художник Винсент Ван Гог. Комиксовые иллюстрации Могаддама не отличаются биографической точностью, это скорее фантазии на заданную тему, иногда с изрядной долей юмора.
Vyacheslav Koleichuk. Cube. 1982. State Russian Museum, Saint Petersburg.
Viacheslav Koleichuk (born 1941, Stepantsevo, Moscow) is a Russian sound artist, musician, architect and visual artist. Koleichuk mainly makes installation art that involves tensegrity. Sometimes these sculptures function as an experimental musical instrument during performances. Some of his works are part of the collection of the Kolodzei Art Foundation. He was a member of (Lev Valdemarovich Nussberg’s) kinetic art movement Dvizhenie in the 60s.
This work is based on the famous masterpiece by Ivan Aivazovsky - The Ninth Wave.
Boris Kustodiev. Venice. 1913. Museum of Russian Impressionism, Moscow.
Boris Kustodiev went to Italy immediately after he had successfully defended his diploma thesis at the Academy of Fine Arts in St. Petersburg, where he had studied under Ilya Repin. He left for Europe with his young wife and newly born son - in the few months they spent abroad, they visited museums and accumulated a mass of impressions. However, his night landscape ‘Venice’ was made six years later, on his second journey, this time travelling alone. In a letter to his wife he wrote: “Venice is a city with which one could fall madly in love. Saint Mark’s Square and Cathedral on its own, the Doge’s Palace too - every time a whole range of new impressions. Venice is beautiful in the morning, in the daytime, and in the evening. Yesterday there was some big festival here, there were masses of people, ancient flags, gondolas with elegant gondoliers - they all passed the palace, and it sparkled in the sun!” Take a look at this painting featuring the night sky. It is painted with bold, free, dynamic brushstrokes, and brightly illuminated by the fireworks. The fire rises up first, before it falls into the water in a glitter of rain. Multi-coloured Chinese lanterns, the gondolas and the whole expanse of water – all is filled with the vibrating effects of different colours. We don’t see figures, instead we feel the visions of people - we see no boats, only flickering brushstrokes. This work was showcased at the Kustodiev’s posthumous exhibition in 1968 - the biggest exhibition of his work ever, held in the museum of the Academy of Fine Arts. At that time the painting was owned by a private collector, and after that show it was taken abroad. It was first exhibited in Russia only in 2013.
Pyotr Konchalovsky. Various Flowers (Still-life with flowers and watering can). 1939. Museum of Russian Impressionism, Moscow.
“You cannot paint a flower ‘just like that’, in slapdash strokes - it needs as much study as anything else. Flowers are great teachers for artists, since discerning and comprehending the structure of a rose requires no less effort than deciphering that of a human face. Painting flowers for me is what practicing scales is for a musician: after a couple of hours’ work your brain goes into overdrive and instead of flowers, sounds crop up… It is a massive exercise for a painter.” Konchalovsky spoke of flower still-lifes with expertise and vigour; it was therefore, perhaps, no surprise, that towards the end of his life he was accused of ignoring the everyday life around him, and of only caring for his art. “At the moment I am much taken with painting ‘against the sun’, – he told his friend, the art critic Viktor Nikolsky in the early 1930s, – “I am interested in catching its hurling silver at the leaves, the trees, at everything – a rather cold kind of silver in so many hues… and such gliding light over the foliage.” Konchalovsky settled far from Moscow, in a place called Bugry near the town of Maloyaroslavets, where he tended his garden, made honey, bred pigs and smoked gammon. Following such a traditional way of life, he did not welcome the comforts of civilisation: there was no electricity in the house, only oil lamps, and the radio was always switched off to shut out news of the outside world.
Mikhail Shemyakin. Girl in a Sailor Suit (Sonechka). 1910. Museum of Russian Impressionism, Moscow.
Sonechka… The name of Mikhail Shemyakin’s young model is the only thing that researchers have been able to discover about the girl. We’re left to guess who she was, and to enjoy the beautiful technique of her portrait – “Girl in a Sailor Suit".
Look for a moment at the background - it’s almost impossible to understand just where she may be sitting. The background was executed in wide strokes, while the image of the young girl herself was clearly created with slower, softer and more tender brushstrokes, with both rapture and delight. The composition is unusual, built around a diagonal, and the light forward tilt of the head was a favorite touch of the artist. The bold and generous reflections of light on the girl’s face, and the collar and cuffs of her sailor suit are called “overtones” and emphasize the heroine’s vivacity. “His paintings are filled with grace, rhythm and subtlety, he seeks to grasp man’s nature and inner life with just a few strokes, and is perfectly precise in approaching but never crossing the fine line between artistic creation and a piece of craft” – such was the high opinion of one art critic about Shemyakin. The artist favored portraiture over all other genres, rather like his teacher Valentin Serov. He excelled in it, and received well deserved recognition from Igor Grabar, the renowned Russian painter, art historian and critic: “A new powerful master of portraiture, a highly professional artist has emerged on the Russian artistic scene. Shemyakin’s portraits have always been skillfully drawn, well composed and are outstanding with their strong sense of character!” Shemyakin portrayed many famous people of his time, such as Vladimir Filatov, the Russian-Ukrainian ophthalmologist and surgeon, and the Russian botanist and physiologist Kliment Timiryazev. But musicians were far and away his favourite subject, earning him the “high nickname” from Igor Grabar – “Painter for the Musicians”. Vladimir Mayakovsky, who was also educated in the arts, called Shemyakin a “realist-impressionist-cubist”. Shemyakin inherited his recognizable “wide manner” of painting from his teachers Valentin Serov and Konstantin Korovin, and it would later be recognized as one of the main features of Russian fine art of the late 19th century.
Vladimir Makovsky. Empress Maria Feodorovna. 1912. State Russian Museum, Saint Petersburg.
One of the most tragic figures of European royalty is the Empress Maria Feodorovna, widow of Alexander III, and mother of Nicholas II of Russia.
The revolution that toppled the Romanovs came as no surprise to many members of the imperial family. Only Nicholas and Alexandra seemed shocked by the Russian people’s decision to overthrow a regime that had epitomized inefficiency and corruption. Maria Feodorovna had one opportunity to see Nicholas II just after his abdication in early 1917. After a brief encounter with her son, the Dowager Empress headed towards one of the imperial villas in the Crimea. While revolution spread throughout Russia, Maria Feodorovna was joined at her seaside refuge by Grand Duke Alexander and Grand Duchess Xenia, their six sons, Prince Yussupov, his parents and his wife Grand Duchess Irina, daughter of Xenia and Alexander, and Grand Duchess Olga and her new husband Colonel Koulikovsky.
Nicholas and Alexandra, along with their children, were sent into exile in the provinces. The imperial couple were initially sent to Tobolsk, and later on moved to Yekaterinburg, near the Ural Mountains. They were all assassinated by Bolshevik guards in Yekaterinburg in July 1918. Grand Duke Michael was also apprehended and eventually executed while in prison during the summer of 1918. Not content with the massacre of these Romanovs, Bolsheviks went around the civil war torn country trying to execute all remaining Romanovs. The year 1918 also saw the assassination of the following Romanovs: Grand Duke Paul Alexandrovich, uncle of Nicholas II; Grand Duke Nicholas Constantinovich, grandson of Nicholas I; three children of Grand Duke Constantine Constantinovich: Ivan, Constantine and Igor; Grand Duke Dimitri Constantinovich, grandson of Nicholas I; Grand Dukes Nicholas Michaelovich, Serge Michaelovich and George Michaelovich, grandsons of Nicholas I; Grand Duchess Elizabeth, widow of Grand Duke Serge Alexandrovich and sister of Tsarina Alexandra Feodorovna. Prince Dimitri Pavlovich Paley, son of Grand Duke Paul Alexandrovich, was also assassinated. In all nineteen Romanovs were brutally executed by the blood-thirsty Bolsheviks. The imperial family never recovered from this tragedy.
Maria Feodorovna and her surviving family left Russia in the spring of 1919. They boarded the British ship HMS Marlborough and never again set foot in their country.
On September 28, 2006, Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna was laid to rest beside her beloved husband, Czar Alexander III at the SS Peter and Paul Cathedral in Saint Petersburg.
Isaak Brodskiy. Vladimir Lenin at the Rally of Putilov Plant Workers in May 1917. 1929. State Historical Museum, Moscow.
In February 1917 strikes at the factory contributed to setting in motion the chain of events which led to the February Revolution. In 10 March 1919 at protest rally in the factory striking workers condemned the Bolshevik government in a resolution claiming “…the Bolshevik government is not the authority of the proletariat and peasants, but the authority of the dictatorship of the Central Committee of the Communist Party…”. When Lenin came to Petrograd to give a speech on 13 March the workers demanded his resignation and when Zinoviev tried to address the workers he was greeted with shouts: “Down with the Jew!”. Strikers barricaded themselves in the factory which was stormed by the Cheka to suppress the strike and about 200 workers were executed.
After the October Revolution it was renamed Red Putilovite Plant (zavod Krasny Putilovets), famous for its manufacture of the first Soviet tractors, Fordzon-Putilovets, based on the Fordson tractor. The Putilov Plant was famous because of its revolutionary traditions. In the wake of Sergey Kirov’s 1934 assassination, the plant was renamed Kirov Factory No. 100.
You may find more information about the factory here.
Aleksandr Benois. Chinese pavilion. Jealous husband. 1906. State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow.
Benua, confined within the limits of his retrospective view of history, believed that the ages and style do not come one after the other, but are unique and closed within them. Rococo with its enthusiasm for things Chinese, Oriental ornamentalism, was similar to the style of Art Nouveau, of the time of Benua. The image of Rococo, the most refined and exquisite style of the 18th century, beloved by the artists of The World of Art, is embodied, according to Benua, in the shapes of outlandish Chinese pavilion, which resembles a light burning in darkness. This fragile island of light is lost between two abysses: a dark starry sky and its reflection in water. The instability of the vision is emphasized by the comic fussing of the characters, dolly ladies and gentlemen, resembling a Chinese shadow show. The style of Rococo, like a bright flash, glared up on the horizon of European culture and has long been extinguished, with a mere flicker remaining.
Mykola Samokysh. Courage Of General Raevsky. 1912. Museum-Panorama the Battle of Borodino, Moscow.
July 23, 1812 the battle of Saltanovka, which has become one of the most legendary pages of the life of General Raevsky. This feat glorified General in the nation. Then arose a legend which was reflected in the famous painting — Rajewski goes on the attack, and next to him are his sons, 17-year-old Alexander and 11-year-old Nicholas.The General himself said it was just a legend. The sons were, indeed, in his case, but in attack they did not go. But in people’s memory Raevsky was a man who sacrifices for the homeland the most expensive.
Viktor Vasnetsov. Duel Peresvet With Chelubey. 1914. Samara Regional Art Museum, Samara.
Alexander Peresvet, also spelled Peresviet, was a Russian Orthodox Christian monk who fought in a single combat with the Tatar champion Temir-murza (known in most Russian sources as Chelubeyor Cheli-bey) at the opening of the Battle of Kulikovo (8 September 1380). The champions killed each other in the first run, though according to a Russian legend, Peresvet did not fall from the saddle, while Temir-murza did. Peresvet’s body, together with that of his brother-in-arms Oslyabya, were brought to Moscow, where they lie buried at the 15th-century Theotokos Church in Simonovo.
