Oriented on making people closer

"Those who touched the Sun. In search of style: avant-garde and Realism in Central Asian Art" - such a project was announced by the Alexander Solzhenitsyn House of Russian Abroad. The exhibition will introduce the general public to the phenomenon of Russian painting, known only to a few — the Turkestan avant-garde, namely, the works of 1920-1960.

According to the organizers, the peculiarity of this direction lies in its versatility — here the convergence of innovative ideas for that time, traditions of the Russian art school and Central Asian ornamentalism can be traced. Connoisseurs of beauty will not be left indifferent by bright colors depicting the life of sunny Turkestan.

Canvases are inextricably linked with the fate of the creators. Lyubov Agafonova, the supervisor of the project, tells about the "three Musketeers" of the Russian avant-garde, who stood at the origins of the art school of Turkestan in the XX century. They tried on the images of Central Asians and conveyed their experience and vision through paints.

The first of the "Musketeers" is the romantic and utopian Alexander Volkov, who organically combined East and West in his work. The practice of Russian avant-gardists, perceived by him through the prism of the decorative art of the East, allowed the master to create his own unique pictorial language.

Many Russian artists visited the East for the "renewal" of creativity and the search for inspiration. However, for Volkov, Turkestan was not an episode, but the theme of his whole life.

The next adept of Russian symbolism and one of the founders of the Turkestan avant—garde is Alexander Nikolaev. Having converted to Islam, the artist took the name Usto Mumin, which means "master". A student of Kazimir Malevich and an Honored Artist of the Uzbek SSR, Nikolaev is remembered for his main work - "The Story of the young man Garnet Mouth", also known as "Joy with garnet".

The tempera painted on the plywood wall of the container box combines both hagiographic icons and Persian book miniatures. The composition shows the story of a boy, a young man-bachi: it is a story of love and adventures with comrades, life "frozen" on the canvas.

Describing the move to Asia, Nikolaev said: "I was aware of... the classic case of the great French artist Paul Gauguin, who lived for seven years on the island of Tahiti, living as a native, performing all their rituals and customs... I had the idea to repeat this experience on myself."

The last of the three is Viktor Ufimtsev, a futurist and "exuberantly colorful painter". Arriving in Turkestan for the first time in 1923, Ufimtsev was struck by the unusual color combinations and rhythms of the East. Since the late 1920s, Ufimtsev was making many sketches in the spirit of neo-primitivism in search of an individual artistic embodiment of his ideas.

The exhibition will also present the works of artists who were directly influenced by "Those who touched the Sun" — these are Robert Falk, Pavel Kuznetsov, architect Vladimir Shukhov, etc.

In total, more than 60 exhibits of paintings, graphics, original books published at the beginning of the last century will be presented. The project participants are the Tretyakov Gallery, the Museum of the East, the Pskov Museum—Reserve, the Heritage Fund of the Russian Abroad and many more "houses" of painting.

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Photo: liveinternet.ru