[Konstantin]

In continuation of photos from our booth gallery Vellum.
It seems interesting.


confessor Nouveau.
Artist: Alexander S. Konovalov.

The era of decadence, which was marked in Russia's flourishing art of symbolism - the most fruitful in the creative for the time when the mystical trends are translated into surprising sight of a picture or poetic images. This era, about which much has been written, a unique distinction between the imperial calmness and future

Читать дальше... 

the revolutionary chaos, much of this chaos rocks. M. Vrubel, A. Benoit, V. Borisov-Musatov, futuristic Goncharova - in painting; Vyach. Ivanov, Nadson, Akhmatova, Mandelstam young - in literature, Scriabin and Rachmaninoff - in music, Nijinsky and Ida Rubinstein, Diaghilev's Russian Seasons - you can choke on behalf of and sparkling creations of people who have the gift of the gods, if angels in the end times indulged death with stories about Garden of Eden. Sophisticated art lover knows these names by heart, repeating a common noun. But not only they did then.
  At the same time, there were amazing burst of creative artists who have not participated in the violent exhibition activities, did not belong to associations and groups, but no less interesting, to create works of art no less force than eminent masters. One of these creators is Alexander S. Konovalov.
She was born in Moscow in 1883. Under the influence of poetic sentiment and sufrazhistskih aspirations for independence, sixteen young lady, in 1899, she entered the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture in the course of stylized flowers. In 1903, she graduated college already established artist. Her teachers were outstanding masters of Russian Symbolism - M. Vrubel, I. Niwinski, Shekhtel. In the first place and of course, a great influence on her creativity has Mikhail Vrubel. Myth-making, the cult udivitelnnogo, on the verge of waking and sleeping, that is different from the religious and domestic norms, affective horror or sadness, characteristic Wrubel, symbolist images generated by artists of the Blue Rose, whose paintings in the exhibitions Vrubel positioned them as a teacher . Theatrical way, inherent in the artist, develops, and in painting and literature. For Block and White, he - the momentum of their creative activity, as a musical - the momentum for a symbolist painting. The principles of art are added when referring to intangible assets, namely, the music, to the epic. Painting is not displaying the history and everyday culture, but something nadmirnym. The invention of sleep and give birth to fragile, ephemeral pictures in which there is no place for the literal perception, and feelings: from the sacred to the ecstasy of erotic experience. To send this becomes unnecessary perspective and depth, a clear response to the picturesque canons, the density of the stroke. On the contrary prevails blur, which gives a light veil of figures, the transparency of the figure, the smoothness of fuzzy lines, like musical phrases - all of which may relate the human imagination with the proposed artist emotions. "In connection with this natural treatment is becoming painters to light graphic techniques --- gouaches, watercolors, pastels, which achieves its incorporeal sense." (J. Hoffman. "Blue Rose." M. "Vargius" 2000) and is a natural respect for these principles and have Konovalova. She not only learns from Wrubel, she participates as a journeyman, in its decorative panels, performing menial part orders. And after the departure of teachers from the life of Alexander Konovalov, continues to write, mostly watercolors, using the teacher's message. Her watercolors present a harmonious synthesis of the fantastic feeling and application performance, inherent Vrubel. This is especially evident in the surviving sketches Konovalova to decorative painting.
Her deep knowledge of Russian and European mythology, his poetry of the Symbolists, has created an intriguing mysterious ways, though an open window to another world with the era inherent affective, mythological delights.
  In MUZVZH she learns at the same time with P. Utkin, N. Milioti, N. Sapunov, P. Kuznetsov, has come two years earlier, and produced his famous "blue rose" in which Konovalova not included, but, of course, Wednesday, from which Her art is nourished, was with them overall. Watercolors Konovalova born from the "symbolic imagination" Vrubel and "ex-dreams" Borisov-Musatov, Luba, Utkin. She continues to "seek the truth in beauty, escaping from the genre and style certainties breaking away from the bondage of time lost, and the more ephemeral, rebelling against the historical necessity, against discrete, by stages." (V. Lenyashin. "Diaghilev and his epoch" SRM 2001). In symbolist, mythological watercolors Alexander Konovalov, there is a sense of simultaneity yesterday and now, real and infernal. It plunges, with no less skill than Milioti or Borisov-Musatov, in the space of the unknown, not forcing the viewer's consciousness, and music easily pulling in dance hoaxes. This is akin to children's feelings when you listen to a fairy tale: Every new word increases the interest - what's next, what the clue from the mysterious history? - And have no strength to not get carried away, do not succumb to this temptation, wrapped in mystery.
Watercolors Konovalova abroad 1900-1910's. - A reflection of the artistic life, thin quotations of Russian Art Nouveau era. She professed the same principles as its contemporaries, the Symbolists, plunged into the overall cultural environment with them, as a compilation of them, say to Sapunov Utkin: the same half-tones, the same "Sfumato," the same fragile musical images. Long, like threads of rain, watercolor brushstrokes ( "After the explanation," Ruslan and Lyudmila), replaced their pearly transparency ( "Das Rheingold," Captive Snake "). Her commitment to originality leads to the end of pre-Revolutionary years, the colorful poster candor tracks familiar from Petrov-Vodkin, to compile figures ( "Bleaching of linen). Later, in the thirties, have been subjected to attack Antiformalist officialdom, it is - hard realist ( "Family", "Processing of cod), but the attraction to myths, fairy tales and love for the mysterious and then not leave the artist. Konovalova, living in Chukotka, where she threw the terrible reality of the Stalinist era, is drawn to the mystical traditions of the aborigines. It is not mistifitsuraya with images only depict shamans ( "ritual dance"), illustrates the sacramental life of the North.
Unfortunately, the crumbs of information that have been collected, can not talk in detail about the amazing artist beginning of the twentieth century, the circumstances of her life and death. We got only her watercolors - wonderful works of art, worthy of a place in the history of culture.
 

                           Sincerely, Love Agafonov