Аннотация: The painting "Christmas" by Arkady Plastov. A culturological note.
The painting "Christmas" by Arkady Plastov. A culturological note.
What is Arkady Plastov known for?
In my opinion, (by) the painting "Spring" ("Весна"). A young girl straightens a little girl's scarf ...
I had the opportunity to read the book "Arkady Plastov" by Vladimir Sysoev.
An excellent selection of the artist's paintings is presented in this book.
What interested me in the first place?
How the artist's life was arranged. He tried to visit his small homeland more often - in the village where he was born.
In the book by Vladimir Sysoev it is mentioned that Arkady Plastov, as a rule, spent the winter in Moscow. It can be assumed that he had a Moscow apartment - although the book does not say so directly about this.
There is no information in the book about Arkady Plastov receiving the Stalin Prize of the first degree, but it is written about this in Wikipedia. Therefore, we can assume that Arkady Plastov had a dacha near Moscow ... Barvikha? Nikolina Gora? - I do not know...
Nevertheless, he regularly visited his small homeland, and many of his paintings were painted there.
More or less attentively, I read the book by Vladimir Sysoev.
I knew about the painting "Spring" before, I liked it. And I like it now. In the Sysoev's book I saw such excellent pictures as "Haymaking" and "Spring" [("A Source of Clean Water")] ("Родник") ...
A series of portraits from Arkady Plastov - portraits of the village inhabitants... Portraits of children and of adults.
For some reason, almost all the people depicted in these paintings have a thoughtful or a sad face.
And "Girl with a Bicycle" is clearly experiencing negative emotions - or so it seemed to me?
- Petya, let me draw your portrait. Come to me to pose ..
- No, I'm busy, my dad told me that I have to work in the vegetable garden.
- I will talk with the chairman of the collective farm (with director of the state farm) - he will instruct your parents ...
(The dialogue is fictitious.)
In general, this line of glorifying the people of the village, of finding some kind of huge potential in them, seemed to me far-fetched - if Vladimir Sysoev has such a theme, if such a line is in the paintings by Arkady Plastov.
One way of life was directing into the past, and another was coming to replace it. 60-70 years will pass - and life will change, it will become completely different. With all the sympathy for the people of "that" village, what potential did they have? To become a member of the 500 days program and of a privatization?
Suffice it to recall the paintings of Kazimir Malevich, dedicated to the Russian peasants of his day. They, these paintings by Malevich, seem to me much more truthful.
What could the villagers say looking at the Stalinist laureate?
They loved their village, I have no doubt about that.
But I also have no doubt that many of them, especially the younger generation, were eager to part with hard and disenfranchised labour. They would not be at all opposed to becoming person like Arkady Plastov, who had the opportunity to live an intelligent life (in Moscow and in his native places).
But in order to become like Plastov, they had to be completely different from what (from types which) Arkady Plastov favorably portrayed in his paintings ... And these paintings idealized them and encouraged them to maintain their way of life ...
Excellent landscapes and still lifes - they are always in demand.
Maybe Arkady Plastov's paintings were sold for a hundred dollars from time to time, but his genius prompted him to write "Spring".
From "Spring" tradition leads to "Venus" by Kustodiev, and from "Venus" by Kustodiev to "Birth of Venus" by Botticelli ...
And Arkady Plastov became not just a good artist (whose paintings are sold from time to time), but an outstanding and famous artist - with a name and with museums.
In the book by Vladimir Sysoev, I read that Arkady Plastov created the painting "Christmas". While reading, I did not pay attention to this picture. Then, I searched the Internet for a picture by Arkady Plastov "Christmas". It turns out that this painting is presented in the book by Sysoev ...
While searching, I read additional materials about Plastov and saw photographs of his descendants. Beautiful people.
Still, the paintings by Kazimir Malevich, which depict peasants of his day, seem to me more truthful.
I do not dispute the enormous merits of the "Haymaking", of "Spring" [("A Source of Clean Water")] ("Родник") and many other paintings by Arkady Plastov.
"Spring" is "Spring". The Botticelli tradition, the Kustodiev tradition ...
December 26, 2021 05:49
Translation from Russian into English: December 26, 2021 07:18
Владимир Владимирович Залесский "Аркадий Пластов "Рождество". Культурологическая заметка".