Dreams of a Russian estate Automatic translate

Exhibition of paintings and drawings by Nikolai Shestopalov - "World of Art", a student of Repin, "Dreams of the Russian estate".

From August 13 to September 11, 2022, the Vellum Gallery is holding the Dreams of the Russian Estate exhibition at the Vladimir Regional Center for Fine Arts, dedicated to the work of Nikolai Shestopalov, a Russian painter, participant in exhibitions of the World of Art association, illustrator, graphic artist, student of I. Repin, a true singer of the Russian estate.

The curator of the exhibition, Serafima Agafonova, selected for the exhibition works of the 1920s-1950s from the collection of the Vellum Gallery, illustrating the artist’s creative path: from academic art and symbolism to creating paintings on the themes of contemporary history.

Visitors will see more than 50 works: these are the pre-revolutionary manor interiors so beloved by the author, landscapes of the Central Russian strip with indispensable churches, pastorals and nearby - the development of a new Soviet industrial way of life. However, it was the landscape that has always been the leading one in the artist’s work, even when it came to the industrial landscapes of the DneproGES.

Nikolai Shestopalov (1875 - 1954), who gained recognition in the 1900-1920s, later turned out to be practically lost in the history of Russian art. Gallery "Vellum", which is also involved in the return of forgotten names of artists, in 2016. has already held two of his exhibitions: in the Russian Museum and the Central House of Artists.

The creative path of the artist was typical for the turn of the XIX-XX centuries. A peasant boy who graduated from a rural parochial school ended up in St. Petersburg, where he studied at Tenisheva’s courses with Repin, in the studios of Mate and Dmitriev-Kavkazsky. Between revolutions, he studies in Germany, Italy and France. Returning to Russia, he participates in exhibitions of the World of Art. The young artist’s social circle includes Benois, Dobuzhinsky, Bakst - those whose worldview broke the then constants of the approach to art, opposing the freedom of the artist’s creative research to the usual realism, especially the "sociality" of the Wanderers.

In a biographical scientific article about the artist, art historian Lyubov Agafonova (founder of the Vellum Gallery) writes: “As typical representatives of modernity, the World of Art visualized the aesthetics of neo-romanticism, poetizing the history, architecture and life of past centuries. In this amazing atmosphere, Shestopalov’s images are also born, but not Western, but bygone Russia. He enthusiastically paints watercolors in old Uglich, depicting the classic Zykov house, the roofs of the palace of Tsarevich Dmitry, or the simple, but such a romantic old-fashioned merchant’s house of the early 19th century, an old estate, a mezzanine overlooking a balcony from which a sheaf of light escapes. The artist captures images of a bygone life, lost forever, but so alluring, fabulous, depicting the architecture of past centuries. But, unlike the same Alexandre Benois, who so loved Versailles and everything "overseas",

Later, he accepts the revolution and has been exhibited in the expositions of the AHRR since the foundation of this organization (1922). But he consciously distances himself from active social processes in the near-cultural life of the country, leaving for design work, illustrating postcards or reconstructing the life of progressive writers and revolutionary publicists. Shestopalov is saved by constant business trips - he travels a lot around the country and paints landscapes of new construction sites. DneproGES, Ural, fishing in the Aral Sea. For himself, he draws landscapes of a bygone time - the monuments of Pskov, Zvenigorod, Uglich. In his declining years, he reads the life of Pushkin and Lermontov. The Soviet state order turns into a series of paintings of a bygone paradise, in the scenery of which literary classics illustrate the life of the old way of life.