[Meister]

SHEVCHENKO
Alexander

1883, Kharkov - 1948, Moscow
 

          AV Shevchenko - one of those artists who in 1910-ies. contributed to a radical change in the language of art, an apologist for the new forms (author of the pamphlet "Principles of Cubism and other modern trends" and "neo-primitivism. His theory. His features. His achievements, both 1913). And yet it can not be called a radical - a kind of softened the devil made present in them. Concern about the beauty and attraction to the quiet harmony, resulting in some cases to the salon decisions more likely to report his work hidden classical nature.

          Shevchenko received his education (1899 - 1909) at the Stroganov Art School (particularly highlighting the school for the professional) in MUZHVZ (KA Korovin) and in Paris - at the Academy Julian R. and E. Carriera workshop. In MUZHVZ he made friends with Mikhail Larionov, and inspired his theories (Rayonism - in part, neo-primitivism - seriously), participated in exhibitions "Donkey's Tail", "Target" and "№ 4 (1912-14). After the departure of Larionov in Paris, this passion took on a more traditional form: a written jointly with AV Gryshchenko manifesto for the exhibition "Tsvetodinamos and tectonic primitivism" (1919) proclaims Shevchenko return to the eternal values of art, however, before he insisted on that "there is no art old and new <...>, because it is timeless, and space." Latitude approach led to the versatility of his interests: in the 1920's. By actively participating in cultural and educational activities Narcompros and a lot of energy giving the teaching in Higher Art School, he also cooperated in the "left" INKhuK in GAHN, with its traditional academic manner, and is "Makovtse" (participant 1 st and 3 rd Exhibition, 1922, 1925). The focus on culture in the whole spectrum of its manifestations is the core activity of the artist - by this sign is the involvement of students in the life of the exhibition (in 1926, Shevchenko organizing of their students union "shop for painters) and the device Museum of Painterly Culture in Moscow and Leningrad. For him the same latitude was not eclecticism, but a conscious desire for synthesis.

          Such a desire is already perceptible in his early works. Sezannizm - the core and foundation constructions - corrected some light cubistic shifts, the primitivist simplified form, but not at the expense of harmonious beauty, classical repertory productions still life and landscapes with figures retains its classical nature due to the absolute sense of color and spatial equilibrium ( "Still Life with Apples" "Landscape with House", 1910, etc.). Images Shevchenko distinguishes enlightenment sometimes idyllic - he tends to be generalized monumental silhouettes of cantabile rhythms based on the repetition of circular movements to the nobility of a balanced composition of color and clarity ( "Musicians", "The Woman at the Mirror", both 1913, "Self Portrait" 1920, etc.). Monumental trend intensified in the works of the 1930's., Especially those related to Oriental subjects: in 1929 the artist was sent to Batumi to begin their discovery of the East - Ajaria, Dagestan, Azerbaijan; here Shevchenko found his ideal of a free and undisturbed existence and captured him in an epic-sounding paintings, lithographs and monotype.

          In the 1940's. it almost does not participate in the artistic life - affect disease, but he had written at the time the memories are vivid narratives about the ways and looking for Russian art.