Paintings in the style of “Graphics. The largest painters, sculptors, graphic artists all over the world Russian graphic artists

Below we will present artists who are famous throughout the world thanks to their ability to draw with a regular slate pencil. Each of them has their own style, personality, as well as favorite themes for creativity. In addition, the name of each author is also a link to the artist’s personal online gallery, where you can study the pencil drawings and biography of each of them in more detail.
As you look through the images, you will notice some interesting features in everyone's paintings. Some are distinguished by soft lines, smooth transitions of light and shadow and streamlined shapes. Others, on the contrary, use hard lines and clear strokes in their creativity, which create a dramatic effect.
Previously, on our website, we have already published images of some masters. Here is a list of articles where you can see equally attractive pencil drawings.

• An album of incredible illustrations from Mattias Adolfsson;

JD Hillberry

Natural abilities and a strong desire to attract attention to his work appeared in JD Hillberry as a child. Desire and talent made the master one of the best pencil drawing artists in the world. While still studying in Wyoming, he began to develop his own technique, mixing coal and graphite to achieve photographs. realistic effect in your drawings. JD uses monochromatic light to draw the viewer's attention through the play of light and shade and texture. Throughout his career, he tried to go beyond realism and expression. After moving to Colorado in 1989, Hillberry began experimenting with trompe l'oeil drawings. Traditionally, this type of work is done in oil, but he successfully conveyed the realism of the plot using pencil. The viewer, looking at such images, is deceived into thinking that the object is in a frame, or in a window, although in fact all these elements are drawn. Working from his studio in Westminster, Colorado, JD Hillberry continues to expand public perception with his drawings.

Brian Duey

Brian is one of the most amazing pencil artists who works beautifully with the pencil to create inspiring works of art. Here's what he says about his work and himself:
"My name is Brian Duey. I was born and raised in Grand Rapids, Michigan. I attended public school in a small village called Granville, where I was first introduced to art. I never thought about the seriousness of my hobby, but I discovered a strong attraction to drawing pencil at the age of 20. I was sitting alone in my house, and out of boredom I decided to pick up a pencil and start drawing. I immediately fell in love with drawing and wanted to do it all the time. With each drawing I got better and better. I developed my own technique and original tricks as I work. I strive to create realistic drawings and add my own conceptual ideas. I am often asked what inspires me and where I learned to draw. I can openly say that I am self-taught.
My illustrations have been published in books and greeting cards, on CD covers and in various magazines. I have been doing commercial work since 2005, and during this time I have acquired clients all over the world. Most of my orders come from the United States, Great Britain and Canada, but I also work with customers from Ireland. My paintings have been shown in galleries throughout the United States. In 2007, I was asked to paint a portrait of Britney Spears that was included in an art gallery in Hollywood, California. The event was covered on MTV and I gained worldwide fame. I am not going to stop there and continue to work. I have new ideas and plans. One of my goals for the future is to publish a drawing tutorial.

T. S. Abe

Although we didn't find many of Abe's works, it is clear from her illustrations that she is a high-class artist. The artist has excellent use of a pencil and skillfully depicts complex ideas, using your own methods. Abe's paintings are harmonious and balanced, complex and at the same time simple to perceive. She is one of the most talented pencil drawing artists of our time.

Cesar Del Valle

The artist uses a special unique pencil drawing technique in his works. Caesar's illustrations not only show his talent, but also reflect the author's subtle perception of the environment.

Henrik

Henrik's work is featured in the Deviant Art Gallery. His drawings are an interesting example of pencil art. The master miraculously uses black and white tones to convey original images and unusual ideas.

The art of graphics is diverse. It includes political posters and newspaper and magazine drawings, book illustrations and cartoons, industrial applied graphics and film advertising. A large section of it consists of easel graphics - drawings and engravings made independently, outside of a special practical purpose. It is named so by analogy with easel painting, the works of which the artist creates on a special machine - an easel; the word “graphics” comes from the Greek grapho (grapho) - I write, I draw. Of course, easel graphics are not completely devoid of purpose. When taking up a brush, pencil or engraver's chisel, the artist always has a specific goal. He strives to convey to people his thoughts and feelings, his understanding of life, to affirm the worthy in it and punish the negative, to show the amazing, hidden beauty of the world, seen only by him. But at the same time, the author of an easel drawing or engraving does not always pursue a propaganda or accusatory goal with his work, like the masters of posters and caricatures; he does not carry out advertising or utilitarian tasks, like the artists of posters and industrial graphics; his images, finally, are not associated with literary heroes and situations, as in the works of illustrators.

In the same way, masters of easel painting and sculpture, unlike muralists and decorators, create independent works that are not associated with any artistic ensemble - a building, room, square, park, etc.

Easel graphics have much in common with easel painting. Although their leading artistic means are different, both of these types of art have great and largely similar capabilities for depicting nature, people, and the entire wealth of the material world. Various aspects of human life, which have always been the focus of art, prompted the composition of its various genres - portrait, landscape, everyday or battle composition, still life, etc. These genres exist both in Soviet painting and in Soviet graphics. The world of the human soul is shown with particular depth in numerous works of easel painting, sculpture and graphics. For this psychological nature, for the multifaceted and large conversation with the viewer about a person, we especially value easel art.

Having much in common with painting, easel graphics, at the same time, in terms of the method of execution - mainly on paper - and in the techniques of drawing and engraving, are close to all other types of graphics. It, like the entire family of graphic arts, is distinguished by the comparative speed of execution of things, as well as good possibilities for their reproduction. Thanks to this, firstly, graphics have great potential to be topical art, quickly responding to events public life, art living in the rhythm of modernity. These possibilities inherent in graphics, as we will see later, were more than once perfectly used by its masters. Secondly, since a graphic sheet is generally executed faster than a painting or sculpture (although no less mental strength, talent and skill are required from a graphic artist), it retains a special immediacy of communication with nature, the possibility of livingly capturing it. If we add to this that the technique of execution graphic works is very diverse, the ideological and aesthetic richness of this art form will become obvious.

A lot of interesting things await the attentive viewer of graphic works. Not immediately, but gradually the originality and beauty of each graphic technique is revealed to him - the silvery clarity of a graphite pencil drawing and the velvety blackness of an Italian pencil, the precise fluency of pen drawings in ink or ink, the tenderness of pastel and sanguine. We gradually learn to appreciate the rich range of gray and black tones, the accessible drawing of charcoal, sauce, black watercolor or ink, the transparent lightness of colored watercolor and the heavier, material language of gouache. We are delighted by the varied and flexible language of woodcuts, the generalized and laconic forms of linocuts, the expressiveness of chiaroscuro and the depth of color in etching, and the free, rich shades of color and soft modeling of lithographic pencil drawings.

Artists often work with mixed media, combining in their works, for example, charcoal, chalk and some kind of pencil, or watercolor and pastel, watercolor and gouache, etc.

In both lithography and engraving techniques, the viewer sees the final result of the artist’s work - an impression or imprint, otherwise a print. Many such impressions can be obtained from one board or stone, and all of them are equally original. works of art. This feature of the prints - their fairly large circulation while maintaining all their artistic merits - is especially valuable to us.

Wider circles of Soviet people are now becoming familiar with art. They find in the print the fullness of thoughts and aesthetic experiences that genuine great art, and at the same time, a print is not a distant museum unique piece that we see only occasionally, but a thing with which beauty enters our home, into everyday life.

Soviet easel graphics is a vast area of ​​our art, the yet unwritten history of which includes wonderful pages of great artistic searches and achievements. It has its own brilliant traditions both in Russian art and in a number of other national art schools. Almost all the greatest painters of the past were also great masters of drawing and watercolor. Watercolors by Alexander Ivanov and K. Bryullov, numerous drawings and watercolors by Repin, graphics by V. Serov and Vrubel are masterpieces of our art full of eternal charm. As a democratic art, bringing the images and thoughts of artists to the people, lithography appeared in Russia at the beginning of the 19th century. Kiprensky, Orlovsky, Venetsianov, and later Perov, Shishkin, Vl are keen on it. Makovsky, Levitan and other artists. In the forties of the 19th century, Shchedrovsky in the album “Here are ours” shows the viewer the trading, craft people, folk types. This was the first experience of creating color lithography in Russian art. Leading artists of the last century value engraving art for its relatively greater accessibility to the people, for the fact that it brings their creations closer to the audience of the public viewer. The classic of Ukrainian poetry and artist T. G. Shevchenko, who worked in etching, wrote in 1857: “Of all the fine arts, I now like engraving most of all. And not without reason. To be a good engraver means to be a distributor of the beautiful and instructive in society." Shishkin was also an etching enthusiast. I. E. Repin repeatedly turned to various engraving techniques. The whole variety of genres - everyday, historical scenes, portrait and landscape - develops in lithography, etching and drawing of the last century.

In the graphics of the early 20th century, as in all art, there is a complex interweaving of sometimes opposing trends. The events of the 1905 revolution capture magazine graphics with particular force, but they also find echoes in easel works - etchings by S. Ivanov, in pastels by V. Serov, a shocked witness of tsarism’s massacre of workers. In these works, as well as in the images of miners, workers, students by Kasatkin, in the drawings of S. Korovin depicting soldiers, in the sheets of Sergei Ivanov dedicated to poor migrants, there lives the interest in the working man and sympathy for his difficult and difficult life, characteristic of advanced Russian art. often a tragic fate. But in the schedule of these decades there is also a tendency to move away from the complexities and contradictions of social reality. In some cases, this tendency leaves the stamp of a kind of passive contemplation on the works of artists, in others it takes artists in their work to distant palace halls and parks that are alien to the general public. Perhaps the leading genre in pre-revolutionary graphics was landscape. It employs such major masters as A. Ostroumova-Lebedeva, V. Falileev, K. Yuon, I. Nivinsky, I. Pavlov, E. Lanceray and others. They subtly see the beauty of multifaceted nature, its various states, the poetry of architecture in its relationship with the landscape. This admiration for the beauty of the world is the main eternal content of their works, which worries us to this day. But sometimes a touch of contemplation is felt in their pages.

In pre-revolutionary engraving, magazine and book illustration, more than in other types of art, the influence of the World of Art society was felt, perhaps because many of its members were graphic artists of high professional level. Of the named artists, this society included Ostroumova-Lebedeva and Lanceray. However, everything best sides their creativity developed contrary to the aesthetic guidelines of the theorists of the "World of Art", who advocated something far from life " pure art"The paintings, watercolors and drawings of the main figures of the "World of Art" A. Benois, K. Somov and others resurrected the gallant and lifeless world of court life of past eras, were a sophisticated and learned game of history. Thus, in pre-revolutionary graphics, works are created that saturated with all the drama of social contradictions, a mass of chamber lyrical landscapes appears and at the same time retrospectiveism flourishes, that is, a departure from modernity, the aesthetics of the world of art.

In the first years after the revolution, the appearance of easel graphics changed little. These harsh years were a time of militant, loud art of posters, propaganda monumental sculpture, and a new art of decorating mass holidays. Against the backdrop of the rapid development of these types of art, easel graphics at first look especially traditional. Basically, the same masters working here are the same as in the pre-revolutionary years, and their work, which has largely already been determined, does not immediately or quickly undergo complex changes associated with the influences of the new reality. Landscape and portrait became the leading genres of easel graphics. Artists lovingly depict ancient corners of cities, remarkable architectural monuments, and the eternal beauty of nature, not subject to social storms. Their works contain a lot of captivating skill and calm admiration for the beauty of the world. But this closed little world of a backward-looking, retrospective landscape seems to be protected from the events taking place in the country by an invisible wall.

Works everyday genre, of which few were created, they depict the same quiet and modest life, untouched by any social upheavals, simple household work.

The graphics of these years are dominated by engravings and lithographs; drawing and watercolor are not very common. Landscapes and portraits are often published in albums of engravings, and these are small-circulation and expensive editions for a few connoisseurs.

The intimacy distinguishes portrait works. Models for portrait painters are usually artists, writers, performers, that is, a rather narrow circle of people spiritually close to the author. Their inner world is revealed subtly and carefully, but not yet at the level of large generalizations that would be accessible to Soviet art later.

And only in the portraits executed by N. A. Andreev, in particular in his images of V. I. Lenin, the portrait genre in graphics immediately acquires new qualities, generalizing power, and social resonance. These drawings are rightfully included in the number best achievements Soviet art, they still delight us today and participate in our lives. But in the years of their creation, these sheets were, as it were, a brilliant exception that only confirmed the rule - that is, the general chamber character of the majority portrait works. We will begin our acquaintance with Soviet easel graphics with Andreev’s drawings, which seemed to be ahead of their time.

For N. A. Andreev (1873 - 1932) - a famous sculptor, author of Moscow monuments to Gogol, Ostrovsky, the Freedom Monument, drawing was not only necessary preparatory stage work, but also an independent area of ​​creativity. In the early 1920s, he painted a large number of graphic portraits of Dzerzhinsky, Lunacharsky, Gorky, Stanislavsky, artists of the Art Theater and others.

Man in all the integrity of his character is what interested Andreev the portrait painter. In his sheets, the model’s inner world is depicted clearly, confidently, and in detail, but without halftones or a wealth of nuances. Getting acquainted with Andreev’s portraits, we seem to receive a sum of very accurate, verified knowledge about the people depicted in them. The accuracy and clarity of this knowledge is the unique pathos of Andreev’s work; the manner of execution of the portraits is also subordinate to it.

Much in this manner comes from the artist’s sculptural vision of form. This is the emphasized plasticity of the design, the obligatory search for an expressive silhouette line, but also the rigidity of color, the lack of a sense of air. But the main thing here was the positive thing that Andreev’s sculptural talent gave - the ability to see the model as a whole, the main thing in the outline of the head, to see the characteristic appearance, cleared of random lines and turns. This integrity of the silhouette, combined with the most detailed development of the face, especially the eyes, constitutes the artist’s unique style. Sanguine, pastel, and colored pencils served her well in Andreev’s hands, as well as charcoal or an Italian pencil, which were used to outline the main volumes.

In the same manner, Andreev also executed several portraits of V.I. Lenin, which were part of his famous Leniniana - a large cycle of sketches, drawings, sketches and sculptures, the creation of which was the main work of Andreev’s life during the years of Soviet power. Portraits of Lenin by Andreev are for us not only the things of a talented artist, but also a precious revelation of an eyewitness, a person who repeatedly observed Lenin at congresses and congresses and in his Kremlin office. A lot of quick sketches were made by Andreev in the process of this work, but there are only three completed portraits; the artist perfectly understood the complexity and specificity of their tasks with the seemingly possible speed of execution.

In one of these portraits, the slight squinting of Lenin’s eyes and a barely noticeable smile breathed life into the image and created an image full of human warmth. At the same time, the portrait also contains a sense of the social significance of the image of the leader, and that is why this sheet is so new in content for the art of graphic portraiture of those years (ill. 1).

The theme of Lenin - the leader of the masses was developed with even greater force and expression by Andreev in the profile portrait of V.I. Lenin, often dating back to the early 1920s. The impulse and energy of this inspired image, its sublime heroism wins hearts. At the same time, the understanding of the historical role of V.I. Lenin here is distinguished by such maturity that this work of Andreev seems far ahead of the art of the early 1920s. With all the wealth and achievements of the art of these years, we will not find in it such a sense of the scale of Lenin’s deeds, the scope of Lenin’s thought, such a historical understanding of his image. And the recent assumption of Leniniana researcher L. Trifonova seems fair that the portrait, which became known only in the 1930s, was created not in the early 1920s, but later. Laconic language and internal content give this sheet real monumentality. It is not for nothing that this portrait is now familiar to the general public not only from many reproductions: it is made in mosaic, it is painted as a panel when decorating holidays. Enlarged to enormous sizes, the drawing loses nothing in its laconic expressiveness,

G. S. Vereisky (born 1886) also worked in the field of portraits from the first years of the formation of Soviet graphics. The moment of assessing the social significance of a person will later occupy an important place in his works, but the artist’s path to this and especially the nature of his first works were different from Andreev’s. G. S. Vereisky received his first skills in art in a private studio in Kharkov. Studying at the university, participating in a student revolutionary circle and the revolutionary events of 1905, in connection with this, prison, and then several years of emigration - these are some moments of the artist’s biography. From 1918, for a number of years, Vereisky worked in the engraving department of the Hermitage. He came there already possessing significant information from the history of world art, and his long work at the Hermitage enriched him even more in this regard. Not bookish, but living knowledge of the masterpieces of world art left its mark on the artist’s creative image; great culture, nobility, simplicity, behind which there is an exactingness, distinguish his numerous works. Vereisky began with portraits executed in lithography, and although we now know him as an excellent draftsman and etcher, he did most of all in the field of lithography.

From the very beginning of his work, Vereisky was characterized by loyalty to nature and observation. Therefore, perhaps, this artist’s long path in art seems at first glance smooth and calm. In fact, it is marked by constant quests, improvement of skills,

Bereysky's first album "Russian Artists" was released in 1922. We see here a fully represented group of artists from the World of Art society, from the founders to its second generation. Vereisky knows his models very well and accurately captures the spiritual mood and character of each of the artists - the gloomy seriousness and unpleasant loneliness of Benois, the joyless concentration of Somov, the prickly expression, the tension of Mitrokhin’s inner life, etc. From these sheets, as from Andreev’s portraits, we we can learn a lot about the people depicted here, but in Vereisky’s portraits there is no moment of assessing people, so to speak, from a distance; the characterization is given in a chamber, intimate-lyrical way, and the question of the social significance of their activities has not yet been raised. In subsequent albums of 1927 - 1928, Vereisky more accurately finds the natural and relaxed pose of the model, draws more confidently and freely. The portraits of the artists Golovin, Zamirailr, the architect Shchuko, the critic Yaremich, Notgaft are successful. Vereisky was well able to convey the inner culture, liveliness of mind, and the charm of great education inherent in the people he depicted.

In the 1930s, Vereisky worked a lot on portraits of pilots, admiring their courage and courage, trying to emphasize these qualities in their descriptions. And when at the beginning of the Great Patriotic War he created portraits of brave combatants Fisanovich, Meshchersky, Osipov and others; they looked like a continuation of the artist’s story about brave Soviet soldiers, begun with works of the 1930s.

But Vereisky’s main achievement in this period and beyond were portraits of cultural figures. With particular clarity, the artist during the war years felt that the theme of his portraits was creativity, the precious and inalienable ability of a person of art to work with creative insight even in moments of severe hardship. In these sheets, Vereisky’s great technical skill seemed to be illuminated for the first time by a deep emotional excitement, and his always correct and accurate portraits acquired a lively emotionality. The director of the Hermitage, the orientalist I. A. Orbeli and the poet N. Tikhonov, were drawn by him during the days of the siege of Leningrad; its hardships left their mark on the appearance of these people, but in spite of the conditions they work and their creative depth is conveyed tangibly and clearly. The same poetry of inspired quest is also in the portraits of the artist E. E. Lansere, conductor E. A. Mravinsky, painter T. N. Yablonskaya (ill. 2). Once again, cultural figures of various professions are presented here, but as their inner world has changed, their ardent devotion to art has been illuminated with a new meaning. The former intimacy of Vereisky’s works is disappearing, and the question of the social role of art is heard in full force in his portraits of the 1940-1950s. The methods of his psychological writing did not become different, but only more precise, but from the usual conscientious truthfulness of his characteristics, the contours of the great inner closeness of the people he depicted, closeness in the main thing - in understanding the meaning of their work, seemed to appear by themselves.

When we pronounce the name of G. S. Vereisky, we often immediately recall the works of M. S. Rodionov (1885 - 1956) - an artist whose art was in many ways internally close to G. S. Vereisky. And the main directions of work - portrait and landscape (which Vereisky also worked on a lot), and the strict beauty of manner, and thoughtfulness in the study of nature were common to these artists. Executed by M. S. Rodionov in 1944 - 1946, also in the technique of lithography, a series of portraits of scientists and artists - Abrikosov, Baranov, Vesnin and others - lays out in our graphics the same line of serious, devoid of external showiness, strong in the inner truthfulness of portrait art, which is also outlined in the works of G. S. Vereisky.

The work of Vereisky and Rodionov took us far from the first post-revolutionary years. Returning to them, we must supplement the circle of portrait works already familiar to us with the works of B. M. Kustodiev (1878 - 1927). A major painter, Kustodiev also worked a lot in graphics. Of interest is the portrait of F.I. Chaliapin he painted in watercolor and pencil in 1921. If in the first version of this portrait the stamp of everyday life seems to extinguish the inner light in Chaliapin’s face, then later the artist creates a complex and at the same time convincing image; one senses talent, breadth, elegance, and some kind of hidden thought in him (ill. 3).

The second widespread genre in graphics of the 1920s was landscape. One of its greatest masters was A.P. Ostroumova-Lebedeva (1871 - 1955). An early awakened interest in art led her to the Stieglitz School of Technical Drawing, where she studied under the guidance of an excellent teacher and engraver V. V. Mate, a great master of tone reproduction engraving. Ostroumova’s creative profile was not immediately determined. Having moved to the Academy of Arts, she studied there with different teachers, and was later accepted as one of I. E. Repin’s students. This was an event that left its mark on the artist’s entire future work. “Deeply, at the core of our art, Repin’s cheerful, fresh and ever-living realism is the cornerstone,” Ostroumova later wrote. Gradually, the artist’s interest in engraving, and in particular in color woodcuts, became more and more determined. She studied fine examples of this art in various collections during her trip to Paris. Of all the engraving techniques, woodcut in Russia at the beginning of the 20th century had the least independent artistic significance and existed mainly as a method of reproducing paintings. Color woodcuts were completely forgotten. Therefore, when Ostroumova-Lebedeva submitted a number of her engravings to the Academy for competition and among them a color woodcut from the painting Flemish artist Rubens' "Perseus and Andromeda", the jury initially even rejected this sheet, mistaking it for a watercolor.

Throughout her long creative life, Ostroumova-Lebedeva carried her commitment to woodcuts and watercolors. The artist herself writes about the first of them with love and poetry:

“In this art I appreciate the incredible conciseness and brevity of its presentation, its laconicism and, thanks to this, extreme sharpness and expressiveness. I appreciate in wood engraving the merciless definiteness and clarity of its lines... The technique itself does not allow for corrections and therefore there is no place for doubts and hesitations in wood engraving ...

And how beautiful is the running of the instrument on hard wood! The board is so polished that it seems like velvet, and on this shiny golden surface the sharp chisel runs swiftly, and the whole job of the artist is to keep it within the boundaries of his will!

There is a wonderful moment when, after difficult and slow work associated with constant intense attention - not to make a mistake - you roll the paint with a roller, and all the lines you left on the board begin to shine with black paint, and suddenly a drawing appears on the board.

I have always regretted that after such a brilliant flowering of engraving, which was in the 16th and 17th centuries, this art began to wither away, became a service, a craft! And I always dreamed of giving him freedom!”

Even in the pre-revolutionary years, Ostroumova created many wonderful works - views of St. Petersburg and its environs, landscapes drawn during her travels in Italy, Spain, France,

Holland. Invariable accuracy and fidelity to nature are already combined in them with a great gift for generalization. The artist paints St. Petersburg especially soulfully and poetically. The city appears majestic in its sheets, full of harmony and beauty. The harmony of the composition, linear clarity, and purity of color distinguish her works.

After the revolution, which, according to her memoirs, caused the artist a surge of creative energy and joyful upsurge, Ostroumova continues to work primarily in the genre of architectural landscape. In its pages, as before, the city is not streets bustling with an active crowd, but, above all, a kingdom of beautiful architecture, its enduring beauty.

At the same time, the artist discovers new features in the appearance of the city, and the restrained emotionality of her paintings is sometimes replaced by a more stormy, impetuous feeling. Within the framework of a single landscape genre, Ostroumova creates things that are very diverse and always internally integral. Let us recall, for example, her 1918 watercolor "Petrograd. Field of Mars." This sheet with the rapid movement of clouds in the high sky, the spaciousness of the square and the slender, forward-looking figure of the monument to Suvorov is full of hidden tension and pathos. The artist’s attitude here is courageous, cheerful, the rhythms of life that she heard are clear, like a march, and, like a march, musical. Ostroumova paints with light strokes, generalized in form, using detailing with wise moderation. It would seem that this sheet is drawn quite simply, but behind its simplicity there is skill and great artistic taste. It is also manifested in the nobility of the modest and beautiful palette of this thing.

The woodcut “Smolny” is permeated with a wild emotion unusual for Ostroumova. The breath of revolution seems to be blowing across this landscape, and the building of calm classical forms seems to live again, as in the boiling waters of October 1917. The collision of black and white seems to double the power of each of these colors. The columns of the Propylaea marking the entrance to Smolny turn menacingly black, the ground shines with bright whiteness, the strokes that outline the road to the building in the depths swirl in a stormy movement, a tree bends under the gusty wind, and slanting falling lines barely outline the sky above Smolny. An image is created full of impulse, movement, and romantic excitement. Moreover, how beautiful and picturesque this black woodcut is, how great are its purely decorative advantages.

The cycle of small woodcuts depicting Pavlovsk is also decorative. The artist saw decorativeness in the outlines of a clump of trees, the silhouette of a statue or lattice, observed in life and therefore convincing.

A classic example of Ostroumova-Lebedeva's great skill is the landscape " Summer garden in the frost" (1929; ill. 4).

The peace of a deserted garden envelops you when you look at this engraving; you seem to find yourself on his alley - this is how the author unfolds the composition of the sheet. The stitch of footprints in the deep snow and the rhythm of the snow-covered black lattice outline the movement into the depths of the sheet, and it softly rounds there with the light silhouette of a bridge. Movement and distant figures of people enliven the entire sheet, but do not disturb its snowy charm. It is in the combination of amazing peace and quiet with the feeling of big city life flowing somewhere very nearby that the special charm of this engraving is born. The poetry of winter, its hazy colors, frosty air fanning the treetops in brittle pink frost, is perfectly conveyed here by the artist.

During the days of the Great Patriotic War, Ostroumova-Lebedeva, who was already more than seventy years old, did not leave Leningrad. She shared with all the residents the incredible hardships of the blockade and did not stop working as best she could. The pages of her memoirs relating to these years are not only a chronicle of hardships and mental anxieties, but also evidence of eternal creative fire and a tireless desire to work. Such a love for art and great devotion to it are still an example for young artists, and Ostroumova-Lebedeva’s achievements in engraving and, in particular, her revival of artistic color woodcuts remain as the great master’s unshakable contribution to our art.

The works of V. D. Falileev (1879 - 1948) are in many ways close in outlook and stylistically to the works of Ostroumova-Lebedeva. He was also a master of black and color woodcuts, and turned to etching and linocut in a constant search for new technical possibilities for his works, in particular coloristic ones. Falileev’s landscapes, both depicting his native country and foreign ones, attract us with the same fullness of feelings, the ability to see beauty in ordinary motifs of nature, as the works of Ostroumova-Lebedeva, but harmony and classical purity of lines are less common in his engravings, his style of drawing is freer and somehow more restless, the coloring is hotter and more picturesque. At the same time, the ability to generalize one’s impressions and create a capacious artistic image with a minimum of means makes Falileev similar to Ostroumova-Lebedeva. In this sense, characteristic is, for example, Falileev’s album of color linocuts “Italy”, where the artist, devoting just one sheet to one city or another, in extremely laconic compositions, sometimes depicting just a fragment of a building, seems to concentrate what is most characteristic in the appearance of Italian cities.

The artist is also interested in stormy nature, he creates a series of etchings “Rains”, varying in a number of sheets, studying the changeable appearance of the sea, the outlines of a stormy sea wave. In landscapes with motifs of storms and rain, some researchers see a unique response of graphics to the revolutionary storm, but such a rapprochement still seems too straightforward. And in Falileev we will not risk establishing a similar relationship between his plots and social events. But in the totality of his works, in the special tension of their internal structure, there really is a sense of complexity social world, and it is more distinct in his landscape sheets than, for example, in the linocut “Troops,” because Falileev was primarily a landscape painter.

I. N. Pavlov (1872 - 1951) was also a representative of the landscape genre in graphics. In his person, Moscow had a poet as devoted and never tired of praising it, as Leningrad had in the person of Ostroumova-Lebedeva. Pavlov was almost the same age as Ostroumova, but his path in art began in other, more difficult living conditions. The son of a prison paramedic, later a guard at the Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Moscow, he had to “go into the public eye” early on, becoming an apprentice in an engraving craft workshop. Reproduction engravings from paintings by V. Makovsky were the first works that brought him success. Subsequently, Pavlov studied at the Stieglitz School of Technical Drawing and in the Mate workshop, as well as at the school of the Society for the Encouragement of the Arts, but not for long due to the need to work. The artist achieves great skill in reproducing paintings, and his engravings are published in popular magazines of those years, introducing readers to the works of major painters - from Repin to V. Makovsky. Photomechanics, however, is further replacing this method of reproduction. In Pavlov’s works, the main theme of his work appears - the ancient corners of Moscow and provincial cities, the landscape of Russia receding into the past.

The transition to creating original engravings was not easy for the artist, but his hard work and love for his subject accomplished a lot. Since 1914, albums of landscape engravings by I. N. Pavlov began to appear. His landscapes were based on impressions of the nature of the Moscow region, and from trips along the Volga and Oka. A chamber perception of nature and a search for a kind of intimacy in it distinguished these first works. “I strove to select corners and intended to see my engravings as real landscapes of mood. On a large scale, in the panoramic nature of the image, it seemed to me that the intimacy and compositional clarity that I tried to achieve could completely disappear,” the artist later recalled. Starting a large series of Moscow landscapes, Pavlov here, too, looks primarily for chamber lyrical motifs and captures antiquity. “I looked for the rarest old buildings, courtyards, dead ends, hundred-year-old wooden houses, churches of old architecture; I did not ignore many outstanding monuments of antiquity... Sometimes I alternated the old with the new in order to emphasize the typicality of the taken piece of the city,” - we read in his memoirs.

From year to year, Moscow engravings by I. N. Pavlov accumulated, making up his numerous albums. Much has changed in a relatively short period of time in Moscow; the quiet corners that I. N. Pavlov painted have become unrecognizable in the huge modern city. And we are grateful to the artist who preserved for us the modest comfort of silent alleys and the friendliness of small houses (ill. 5). And in other Russian cities - Kostroma, Uglich, Ryazan, Torzhok - Pavlova is attracted ancient architecture. He felt her expressiveness and originality very well. But in general, Pavlov’s works contain incomparably less artistry and plastic beauty than, for example, the landscapes of Ostroumova-Lebedeva or Falileev. The documentary accuracy of his works often turns into photographic style.

5. I. N. Pavlov. Leaf from the album "Old Moscow". On Varvarka. 1924

Pavlov's cycle of modern landscapes was expanded in the 1920s - 1930s, when, having joined the Association of Artists of Revolutionary Russia, he, like many masters of art, went on creative trips to the industrial centers of the country. Colored linocut "Astrakhan" with a dark flock of ships and lights big building The People's Commissar of Water on the shore, the landscape "On the Volga" with sharp black silhouettes of sailing ships and slightly trembling water, "Baku", "Balakhna" and some other sheets executed in these years were among the artist's best works. The sheet “Zvenigorod. Outskirts”, created by the 78-year-old master in 1949, also captivates with its joyful, bright mood.

The inappropriate praise of Pavlov's work by critics in the late 1940s and early 1950s obscured the shortcomings of his works and, paradoxically, prevented their true merits from being revealed. Complete denial of his work is often encountered today. But we appreciate the artist’s great work and his rich experience, which he generously shared with many masters of Soviet graphics at the beginning of their creative path.

Pavlov's merit - along with V.D. Falileev - is the introduction of linocut into use by Soviet artists, and the invention of a new method of printing prints with watercolors - aquatype.

Among I. N. Pavlov’s students, M. V. Matorin, a master of color woodcuts and a landscape painter, works fruitfully as an artist and teacher.

In his appeal to the architectural landscape and ancient monuments, I. N. Pavlov was not alone in the 1920s. Vl. Iv. Sokolov, a student of Levitan, whom the same I.N. Pavlov managed to interest in engraving techniques, released several albums in 1917 - 1925 dedicated to Sergiev Posad, old Moscow, and Rostov. These are all good examples of ancient landscapes. In the albums of lithographs by Yuon and Kustodiev in the 1920s one can also see Sergiev Posad, Russian landscapes, pictures of untouched old provincial life. The classical buildings of St. Petersburg stand in the chased lines of the woodcuts of P. A. Shillingovsky, whose album of landscapes, published in 1923, although called “Petersburg. Ruins and Renaissance,” mostly contained only sad pictures of ruins - the destruction caused to Petrograd by military devastation. Having later arrived in Armenia, Schillingovsky again saw only the features of antiquity, publishing an album of etchings “Old Erivan” in 1927. Thus, the ancient landscape in the graphics of the first decade is not a random hobby of individual masters, but a whole phenomenon.

Only around 1927 did interest in it dry up, and the same Shillingovsky, a great admirer of architectural antiquity, created the album “New Armenia” in the next year, 1928, as if noting in his work a characteristic turning point that had occurred in graphics.

The new, of course, grows in the depths of the old, and works dedicated to the modern landscape appeared in graphics, so to speak, in its depths, among things already familiar to us. Their authors were artists who yesterday devoted their creativity to contemplating the eternal beauties of architecture and nature. For example, I. I. Nivinsky (1881 -1933), the greatest master of Soviet etching, in the album “Crimea”, published in 1925, artistically and easily, although with a touch of contemplation, conveys the everyday festivity of the beautiful southern nature. For the 10th anniversary of October, by order of the Council of People's Commissars, Nivinsky creates several large etchings "Zages", where, depicting a power plant in Georgia, he not only introduces a new subject into his landscapes, but also actively seeks new forms of expression for it.

The etching “Monument to V. I. Lenin in Zagese” is successful, with its careful drawing and the monument to V. I. Lenin naturally dominating the industrial landscape - the creation of the sculptor I. D. Shadra (ill. 6). The beauty of this monument, its majestically spectacular silhouette becomes the main component of the landscape image here. Nature is now conceived by the artist not only as an object of admiring contemplation, but also as a field of great human activity. For the first time, notes of an active attitude towards life sounded clearly in the graphic landscape.

New motifs appeared in the second half of the 1920s in the work of the artist I. A. Sokolov (b. 1890). A student and great admirer of V.D. Falileev, I.A. Sokolov, from the very beginning of his work, depicted scenes of labor in engravings. At first, this is the difficult and troublesome domestic work of a woman around the house, handicraft work - a cramped and limited world, shown with warmth and love. A shoemaker bent over his work, a laundress, a grandmother with her grandchildren in a cramped, nondescript room in the evening, the slender silhouette of a lacemaker against the background of light fabric with an intricate pattern, obviously knitted by her - these are Sokolov’s first works (ill. 7).

By their nature they are very close to the works of I. Pavlov, Vl. Sokolov and other artists who showed us the unostentatious corners of big cities, their untouched antiquity. “It seems that life, reflected in the engravings of I. A. Sokolov, took place behind the walls of those small houses that I. N. Pavlov depicted,” rightly writes I. A. Sokolov’s biographer M. Z. Kholodovskaya.

Obviously because the artist was always close to paintings of labor, he was one of the first to expand the narrow framework of his theme and begin to depict the new world of industrial labor - work at a large metallurgical plant. His first sheets, depicting the Moscow Hammer and Sickle plant, date back to 1925. By this time, the artist had already mastered the technique of color multi-plate linocut, and the views of workshops, the interweaving of powerful steel trusses, and the complex lighting of scenes with dazzling hot metal were reproduced by him accurately and in detail. Later, already a mature master, Sokolov again came to his familiar factory and in 1949 created a series of engravings dedicated to him. This time he introduces portrait sheets into the series; one of them, depicting steelmaker F.I. Sveshnikov, was especially successful for the artist. In the guise of Sveshnikov, intently watching the smelting, he managed to convey the modesty, simplicity, and charm of a man with extensive life and work experience. But Sokolov’s first “factory” sheets retain their significance for us; they contain the conscientious precision of the first steps along a path still unknown to the author himself and other artists.

Throughout his life, I. Sokolov worked a lot in the field of landscape. His landscapes of the 1920s and 1930s became widely known; the cold freshness of early spring and the fiery robe of autumn are always captured in them with a clear, precise drawing, clear, pure colors. Improving the technique of color linocut, achieving a free transfer of a rich range of colors, the artist uses a large number of boards, and sometimes rolls onto the board not just one, as usual, but several paints. His famous engraving “Kuzminki, Autumn”, captivating with its hot picturesque colors, for example, was executed on seven boards in nine colors.

The events of the war were reflected by the artist in the large series “Moscow in 1942” and “What the Enemy Ruined.” In the first of them, drawing tanks leaving for the front on the streets of Moscow, herds driven to the rear, vegetable gardens in courtyards, etc., the artist saturates his sheets with genre motifs, but still remains primarily a landscape artist in solving the composition as a whole. In the second - landscape - series, the documentary task is deliberately brought to the fore, but sadness also colors these sheets, depicting the painful destruction of the beautiful ensembles of the suburbs of Leningrad. The same documentary task faces the artist in his series of the post-war years, in which he painstakingly and carefully reproduced memorable places associated with the life and work of V. I. Lenin and A. M. Gorky.

The first works about the new life, like the sheets of Nivinsky or Sokolov, were few in number. However, their number is gradually increasing. During the years of the first five-year plan, trips of painters and graphic artists were organized to the most important new buildings, industrial giants, and to the first collective farms. The artists responded enthusiastically to these new assignments. And although among the works created as a result of these trips there were still few things of high artistic merit, with this work a new fresh stream, a breath of the great life of the country, came into the graphics.

The complexity of this work lay in the artists’ insufficient knowledge of the everyday life of socialist construction, and in the debatable nature of many issues of the artistic form characteristic of those years. Numerous artistic groups often came out with opposing theoretical platforms, and in the disputes that arose then the very right to exist of easel art was sometimes called into question. We should not forget that these years were a period of contradictory quests in the field of art education. Often, improper preparation of artists in universities deprived them of the strong foundations of professional skill, and the young graphic artist had to make up a lot later. True, the works of a number of excellent masters of the older generation, as well as the advice they gave to young people, often outside the official walls of the university, were very instructive for them. There were also such studios as, for example, Kardovsky’s studio, in which artists underwent a fruitful school of realistic drawing and composition. Yet the working conditions for artists were difficult. They improved only with the liquidation of artistic groups in the early 1930s and the unification of all healthy creative forces on a single realistic platform.

When graphics turned to modern themes, several main directions of artists’ work quickly emerged. One of them was, as we saw in the engravings of I. Sokolov, through an accurate, somewhat descriptive, almost documentary reproduction of the mainly industrial labor situation seen. In works of this type there was a lot of the authors’ ingenuous and honest desire to tell the viewer as accurately and completely as possible about new buildings and factories. It is not for nothing that artists often do not limit themselves to one sheet, but capture views of a factory, construction, etc. in a whole series of them.

The second direction can be called that warmed by a lyrical feeling, laconic, preserving the liveliness of the sketch, but also its lack of clarity, the art of industrial landscape, which was created in the late 1920s - early 1930s by N. N. Kupreyanov (1894 - 1933), a student of such different artists , like Kardovsky, Petrov-Vodkin, Ostroumova-Lebedeva, Kupreyanov traveled a short but difficult path in art, full of constant quests. He worked interestingly not only in easel graphics, but also in book illustration. Kupreyanov was one of the first to devote his works to the revolution, and his woodcuts “Armored Car” (1918) and “Cruiser “Aurora” (1923), somewhat deliberate in their emphasized angularity or rapid movement of lines, carried in themselves a particle of genuine spiritual uplift, a lively response to events of October. Soon leaving woodcuts, Kupreyanov works mainly in the style of free, full of light and mysterious light and shadow transitions of drawing in ink and watercolor. Chamber landscapes and scenes of the “Selishchensky series”, in which there is both the warmth and close isolation of the family world, constitute one of the aspects of his work. But Kupreyanov’s art early reaches the expanses of the vast country. In the series “Railway Tracks" (1927), his quick brush fills sheet after sheet with the echoing movement of trains, and in its hasty rhythm one can hear the echo of the country’s business life. The cycles “Baltic”, which began to be created in 1931, and “Fisheries of the Caspian”, which arose as a result of the artist’s trips there, show the same ease of outwardly careless sketchy manner of drawing. Behind it one can feel the far from completed search for images of modernity, combining the expression of the fleeting and the capacious content of the characteristic.

An early death cut short the artist’s work in the midst of it.

The third direction in the work of graphic artists on modern themes emerged with the early trend of a romantically elevated presentation of the plot. She turns industrial motifs into a majestic, sometimes enchanting spectacle. It would seem that these are the works that have the most creative, emotional approach to nature. And indeed, among them there are often significant and very beautifully executed things. But their romantic elation most often has a somewhat abstract and subjective character; it, like the descriptive accuracy of other works, is the result of only the artist’s first contact with the theme. It is not without reason that, being carried away by general types of construction, factory workshops, etc., the authors of all early industrial works still devote a very modest place to people in them. An example of works of a romantic nature is the sheet by N. I. Dormidontov “Dneprostroy” (1931; ill. 8). Dormidontov (born 1898) is also one of the first artists of modern themes in graphics. Already from the mid-1920s, his worksheet devoted to work appeared - at first, constrainedly precise and dry, then more free and based on composition. In the drawing “Dneprostroy” the artist is captivated by the huge scale of the structure and the enchanting nature of the picture of the night works, illuminated by the harsh light of numerous light bulbs. In his drawings, labor turns into a stunning spectacle, mysterious, grandiose and slightly fantastic.

A similar interpretation of labor can be seen in a series of engravings by A. I. Kravchenko (1889 - 1940), also dedicated to the construction of the Dnieper Hydroelectric Station (1931). It was created by the artist already in his mature period of creativity, and his spectacular skill was clearly manifested in it,

In the engravings of this cycle, huge dam structures are piled up, going up, crane booms rise closely around them, the high sky swirls with clouds, and the sun sends its dazzling rays upward. The contrasts of black and white colors give rise to a bright, restless range of engravings. The spectacle of Kravchenko’s construction is grandiose and impressive. And the people who create a new industrial giant in difficult conditions are given only as rhythmically repeating groups of identical silhouette figures, as abstract carriers of movement. However, many artists were then attracted primarily by the general panoramic expressiveness of the construction site, workshop, etc. And in Kravchenko’s engravings it is only expressed most talentedly.

Kravchenko’s work in general constitutes a bright and original page in the history of our graphics. A master of woodblock printing, etching and drawing, very sensitive to themes of acute social connotation in easel objects, a science fiction writer and a wizard in illustrations, Kravchenko quickly gained wide fame at home and abroad. Coming from a peasant family, he was educated at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture. His teachers were famous Russian painters S. Ivanov, V. Serov, K. Korovin, A. Arkhipov. Kravchenko began his career as a painter, but in the field of drawing and engraving, which he turned to during the years of Soviet power, his work is especially interesting. Numerous trips to India, France, Italy, America and the Soviet Union completed Kravchenko’s artistic education and broadened his horizons. Kravchenko worked very hard. He created a bizarre world of images in book illustrations, combining fantasy and grotesque, the quivering magic of feelings and the energy of obsession. He constantly worked in the field of landscape; his various sheets capture the harmony, beauty of both the modest nature of the Moscow region and the famous cities of Europe. He is one of the first to create graphs story series, responding to public issues. The series of engravings dedicated to the funeral of V.I. Lenin, made in the same year, 1924, was a sad eyewitness testimony, and now has acquired the significance of a historical work. The artist subsequently returned to the Leninist theme once again, completing the austere and solemn engraving “Mausoleum” in 1933. He also made a series of engravings “A Woman’s Life in the Past and Present” for the Soviet pavilion at the International Exhibition in Paris. In contrasting paintings, the artist reproduced the fate of a woman-mother in Tsarist and Soviet Russia; he acted here as a storyteller, whose speech was emotional and vivid, but there was no great internal and plastic expressiveness in his images. After the “Dneprostroy” series, Kravchenko did not abandon the industrial theme and in 1938, using materials from a creative business trip, he created drawings and etchings dedicated to the Azovstal plant.

In the etching depicting a steel spill (ill. 9), the artist remains captivated by the power of huge technical structures and the majesty of the picture of labor. He freely composes a complex scene, effectively illuminating it with streams of light and sparks. In addition, a real labor rhythm appears here, and with it the expediency of everything that happens, instead of the somewhat abstract pathos of “Dnieper.” In addition to spectacular entertainment, the sheet also acquires great content.

This monumental etching was executed by Kravchenko for the All-Union Exhibition "Industry of Socialism". This exhibition in Soviet art is associated with a massive appeal of artists to modernity. Works for it were created over several years, starting in 1936. Shortly before the start of this work, 1,500 drummers from one of the largest factories wrote on the pages of Pravda, addressing the artists:

"We expect big canvases from you. We want them to be more than just simple photographs. We want them to be filled with passion. We want them to excite us and our children. We want them to instill in us the joy of struggle and thirst for new victories. We want you to show the people of our country - heroes and ordinary participants in our construction project."

These passionate words not only well formulated the tasks of our art, but also reflected that atmosphere of the people’s demanding love for art, that sublime interest in it of the working man who helped artists in their work. Organized on the initiative of Sergo Ordzhonikidze and opened during the XVIII Party Congress, the exhibition widely covered the life of the Soviet Country. Over 1000 works were exhibited here, of which about 340 were in the graphics department (except satirical). Among these sheets there were few works of great skill, and few of them have survived to this day. But the new themes they brought, which the artists saw in real life - on the scaffolding of new buildings, in the workshops of a factory - were a great achievement for the art of graphics. Dneprostroy and work at the Solikamsk potash mines, the construction of the metro and the development of the Arctic, gold mining in the taiga and the work of a miner - how different these topics are from a vicious circle life phenomena, to which the world of easel graphics was previously limited, how little commitment to antiquity and fundamental retrospectivism remains in it! There were still a lot of industrial landscapes here. But besides them, scenes of labor also appear; and a person working in a factory, in a field, in a laboratory, in a mine for the first time becomes the hero of graphic works. Artists still do not know his inner world well; at first they only feel well and are able to convey his confident demeanor in his work, the plasticity of his professional movements. That’s why a laboring gesture in drawings can be more convincing than a facial expression, and some good works are spoiled by the outward roughness of the characters.

The artist A. Samokhvalov (b. 1894), for example, in a series of watercolors well showed the energy and optimism of the “Metrostroy Girls”, but also emphasized their roughness. Such an emphasis seems to put a limit to our knowledge of Samokhvalov’s heroines and impoverishes his work, although in its very tone, in its atmosphere there are features that were truly seen in life. A working man is more thoughtfully characterized in the watercolor by S. M. Shor (born 1897) “The Goat Woman” from the series “Old and New Qualifications of Donbass” (1936; ill. 10). Here the image of an intelligent and energetic woman is created, her mental makeup and moral strength are sensitively guessed. It is not for nothing that S. Shor then became a master of graphic portraits, most often performed by her using the technique of etching.

In the pre-war years, work sheets dedicated to I. A. Lukomsky (born 1906) appeared. In his sepia drawing “Worker” (1941; ill. 11), the emphasis is transferred from the individual and characteristic to the typical, presented emphasized, as if in close-up. Inner freedom and pride in one’s work can be seen in the worker’s face.

An important event for graphics in the 1930s was the preparation of an exhibition of illustrations for the history of the party. It focused the interest of many artists on historical subjects and made them rethink the path taken by our state. The historical-revolutionary theme began its life in graphics already in the early 1920s. However, at that time these were only individual works, mainly engravings, in which abstract decorativeness and schematism were often still considered an integral aspect of engraving technique. Later, in 1927, as a complete contrast to these works, the image of the hero of the Perekop battles, covered with revolutionary pathos, appears under the chisel of the Ukrainian artist V. I. Kasiyan. V. I. Kasiyan (born 1896) - a native of Western Ukraine, educated at the Prague Academy of Fine Arts - an artist of a searching soul, a bright temperamental manner. His work is bright and emotional, but he still remains alone in the chart of these years.

Most of the works created for the mentioned exhibition acquired an easel rather than an illustrative character. Opened in 1941, before the war, it was called the “Exhibition of New Works of Soviet Graphics” and included a number of good works. Many of them belonged to masters book graphics. Illustrators brought to the sphere of easel drawing the psychological nature of images and the accuracy of historical settings, which were then recent and striking achievements of their art. These were the sheets of the artist collective Kukryniksy - “On the Barricades”, “Chkalov on Udd Island”, “Political Leads”, Kibrik - “Khalturin and Obnorsky”, Shmarinov “Bauman’s Funeral” and others.

The interest of graphic artists in historical themes in the 1920s and 1930s also had another aspect related to literature.

The inspired images of Pushkin and Lermontov attracted the creative attention of artists for many years. N.P. Ulyanov (1875 - 1949) put a lot of work into his Pushkin series. One of the major Soviet painters of the older generation, a close student of V. A. Serov, Ulyanov was a master of historical painting and portraiture, as well as a theater artist.

Ulyanov's drawings tell about different periods of the great poet's life - from the lyceum days to the last tragic months; they are completed to varying degrees - some are more complete, others look like sketches, like pages of intense and unfinished searches, but in all of them the main thing for the artist is the fiery life of Pushkin’s soul. One of the best is a drawing executed in connection with the painting “Pushkin with his wife in front of a mirror at a court ball.” The proud, beautiful appearance of Pushkin appears here in the laconic lines of a Serov-like inspired drawing.

The Pushkin theme receives another interpretation in graphics - in the landscape of memorable places. The artist L. S. Khizhinsky (born 1896) works in this genre. In his jewellery, skillfully executed woodcuts depicting Pushkin's and Lermontov's scenes, he achieves a difficult combination of documentary accuracy and emotional poetry. Without this combination, the success of a memorial landscape, which is always built on subtle subtext and individual associations, is impossible.

In the 1930s, new moments in the development of graphics were felt very strongly. They consist not only in new directions in the work of artists, which, as we have seen - supported by exhibition activities! - are gaining great scope, but also in the new content of the traditional genres of portrait and landscape, and in the appearance of significant works by artists of the Union republics. Thus, V.I. Kasiyan, already mentioned above, created engravings dedicated to Shevchenko in these years, full of serious thoughts. The artist also put a lot of spiritual fire into his later work about the great kobzar, depicting the unbroken angry Shevchenko against the backdrop of episodes of the people’s struggle (ill. 12).

The most important works of these years include landscapes and portraits of the Armenian master M. Abeghyan, lithographs dedicated to Moldova by the Ukrainian G. Pustovit, a monumental etching Georgian artist D. Kutateladze, portraying S. Ordzhonikidze and S. M. Kirov. During this period, the famous Azerbaijani artist A. Azimzade, a caricaturist, draftsman and poster artist, created the most interesting things in the field of easel graphics. Pictures of the past are reproduced in his sheets in an original, detailed manner, with a touch of ornamental design. What new appears in portrait and landscape of the 1930s? The former intimacy of these genres is disappearing, and their masters are moving more and more boldly towards life, getting to know new people, expanding the geographical scope of landscape works. The latter applies not only to masters of industrial, but also ordinary landscapes. If previously only E. E. Lanceray, who tirelessly studied the nature and life of the peoples of the Caucasus, and Shillingovsky, who painted Armenia, deviated from the established Moscow-Leningrad tradition in landscape, now a whole galaxy of masters creates their works outside its narrow borders. Artists depict the nature of central Russia, the North, Crimea, the Caucasus, and Central Asia. Landscape becomes an area of ​​brilliant use of watercolor technique. The works of graphic artists L. Bruni, A. Ostroumova-Lebedeva, painters S. Gerasimov, A. Deineka, P. Konchalovsky testify to the real flourishing of watercolor landscapes. The activity of the author's worldview is a new feature of these works. Perhaps it is visible with particular clarity in the landscapes of those artists who happened to visit abroad during these years.

A keen vision of the contrasts of foreign reality is inherent, for example, in the Parisian and Roman landscapes of A. A. Deineka (ill. 13). The artist cannot surrender to the calm charm of majestic architecture and statues, as was the case more than once in the pre-revolutionary foreign series of graphics; against this beautiful background, his eye notices both the figure of an unemployed man and the sinister, self-confident figures of church ministers. It is in the circle of works such as Deineka’s sheets that the journalistic passion and political intransigence characteristic of Soviet graphics are born.

These qualities were also manifested with great force in the “Spanish Series” of drawings by Leningrader Yu. N. Petrov (1904 - 1944). Petrov’s series was the contribution of easel graphics to the fight against fascism, which in those years was already actively waged by both caricature masters and political poster artists. The art of Yu. Petrov, a draftsman and illustrator, was the art of great culture and deep feelings. Petrov was a participant in the fight against fascism in Spain, he knew and loved this country, its people, its great writers and artists of the past, and his drawings reflected this love and reverence. Spain, its mountainous landscapes, houses destroyed by bombs, its reserved, proud and ardent people - soldiers of the People's Army, women and children who lost their homes - are captured in laconic, slightly sad and courageous compositions. Some pages of Petrov’s series seem like sketches, but the gentle drawing with soft modeling so accurately outlines the plasticity of forms and landscape plans, such reverent life fills them that the great thoughtfulness of each sheet becomes noticeable. This series remains one of the most experienced and sincere things in our schedule. Its author subsequently died at a combat post during the Great Patriotic War, and his art, which promised much, did not have time to reach its zenith.

The Great Patriotic War, which began in 1941, dramatically changed the nature and pace of development of all types of art. It also caused big changes in easel graphics. The efficiency of graphics and the comparative simplicity of its techniques have now become especially precious qualities. The burning need to have their say in the hour of people's trials, to quickly respond to the bitterness and heroism of the day that had come, led many artists to drawing, watercolor, and sometimes engraving. Along with its recognized masters, some painters and also, very successfully, illustrators now began to work in easel graphics.

From the very first year of the war, along with posters and caricatures, easel graphics became one of the most active forms of art that deeply moved the hearts of viewers. The masters of drawing and engraving created many beautiful things, born of anger and inspiration. There are individual peaks in this string of works, distinguished by their special plastic skill. But the general level of military graphics is high. The artists created their drawings in the ranks of the Red Army, and in besieged Leningrad, in cities through which a heavy wave of retreat passed, in the rear, where everything was subordinated to the tasks of the front, and outside the borders of our country during the last period of the battle against fascism. The graphics showed us different sides of the war, different facets of life during this crucial period in the history of our Motherland - from the fleeting reverie of a tired nurse to the panorama of a huge battle. At the same time, the difference in talents and disposition was also clearly reflected. imaginative thinking artists. In the works of one, the war appears as long military roads, often unpleasant, and sometimes so keenly pleasing to the eye with the unexpected beauty of the surviving forest. In the sheets of another, it follows a series of simple scenes of army life, sketched hastily but accurately. In the drawings of the third, it is in the special expression of the eyes of a warrior or partisan who has met death more than once. The courage and patriotism of the Soviet people, which manifested themselves so clearly during the war years, were glorified by the artists in these works of different nature. Graphic works are full of that special feeling of the beauty of our Soviet life, aggravated by the war, which marked the best things in all types of art.

A characteristic feature of the graphics was the appearance of a large number of sketches. Artists sometimes performed them in the most difficult combat situations, trying to tell people more accurately and completely about the war, and to collect material for future compositions. In the preface to the album of drawings “Front Diary” by Moscow graphic artist P. Ya. Kirpichev, Hero of the Soviet Union S. Borzenko writes: “One after another there are paintings, sketched in the fresh traces of the war, passing as the artist saw them at the time of the events... "No dangers or difficulties stopped him. He made his way to his favorite targets among the minefields and worked there from morning to evening, afraid to miss the moment, fearing that the fires would go out and captured teams would take away the damaged guns and tanks." This description of the artist’s front-line work is very typical, because many easel graphic artists worked like Kirpichev during the war. Sketches constitute the precious fund of our art, which is far from being published in full. Their authors are N. A. Avvakums, O. G. Vereisky, M. G. Deregus, U. M. Japaridze, N. N. Zhukov, P. Ya. Kirpichev, A. V. Kokorii, D. K-Mochalsky, E.K. Okas, U. Tansykbaev, S.S. Uranova and others created a whole chronicle of difficult military everyday life, a poem about a man at war defending his homeland from fascism.

Despite the fluency that distinguishes the sketches, they already indicate the peculiarities of the talent of each artist - and not only his master of drawing, but also a certain range of phenomena that touches him most of all.

So, A. V. Kokorin (born 1908), for example, will never pass by a picturesque scene that he unexpectedly saw; in his graphic diary he sketches saddles hanging on a gun and a broken truck with sticking out from under it on three sides the boots of soldiers repairing it, and a convoy soldier calmly sewing something on a sewing machine right in the field, and the figure of a priest with a large backpack talking with a Soviet soldier. The general characteristic of people's appearance is accurately captured by Kokorin, and behind his simple scenes you always feel a slight smile and affection for his heroes. It was in these sketches that Kokorin accumulated his experience as a master of architectural landscape, able to outline the appearance of the city, the main contours of its architecture, and the life of the street - qualities that were developed in the artist’s post-war Indian drawings.

Warmth and lyricism distinguish the sketches and drawings of D. K. Mochalsky. Even in the most inappropriate situation for this, in the hustle and bustle of front-line roads leading directly to Berlin at the last stage of the war, or already in Berlin - the citadel of fascism that our troops have just taken - the warmth of life, its joyful ray, in a gentle form will definitely flash in Mochalsky’s sheets traffic controller girls, in the fighter’s gaze fixed on a woman with a baby stroller.

N. N. Zhukov (born 1908) appears as a physiognomist artist who can see a lot in a person in his military sketches. A constant interest in a person’s inner world makes even his most seemingly cursory drawings meaningful. Landscapes, sketches of soldiers, and genre scenes alternate in his sheets. Zhukov's style of pencil drawing, devoid of any shade of external showiness, seems to reflect this artist's absorption in nature, his thoughtful approach to it. Zhukov's works gained fame even before the war, when he painted a series of illustrations for the biography of Karl Marx. Subsequently, Zhukov did not abandon his work on this important topic. He put a lot of work into creating a series of drawings “V.I. Lenin”. Her most successful sheets are designed in the form of a light sketch, capturing a short moment in a chain of others, in the form of a kind of portrait sketch. But it was precisely when creating military sketches that the artist’s powers of observation and his skill in quick sketching were strengthened, which were useful to him later - both in an extensive series of drawings dedicated to children, popular with viewers, and in portraits. Most of all, the experience of wartime work was reflected in the illustrations for “The Tale of a Real Man” by B. Polevoy, created by Zhukov shortly after the war.

It must be said that the experience of military work played a role in the illustrative work of other artists. This experience helped O. G. Vereisky create drawings for “Vasily Terkin” by A. Tvardovsky, and brought A. V. Kokorin, later an illustrator, closer to the military theme for a long time. Sevastopol stories"L.N. Tolstoy. The path of A.P. Livanov from the series "Partisans", created by him shortly after the war, to the illustration of "Chapaev" by D.A. Furmanov was also logical.

Another characteristic feature of wartime graphics was the artists’ turn to the form of a series, that is, a series of sheets united by a single concept and manner of execution. We could see that series were created by artists before, but during the war years they became a leading phenomenon in graphics. A series is good only when the viewer learns something new with each page, when the artist guides his impressions, alternating the sheets in a certain way, that is, giving the series a clear composition. We always encounter the concept of “composition” when analyzing a separate work of art. But in reality there is also a composition of an entire graphic series as an internal pattern of alternation of its sheets, between which various connections arise. By clearly constructing the composition of the series, the artist finds in it a new means of great expressiveness. The author of the series essentially performs a polysyllabic, multifaceted work, each page of which must sound complete and strong, and at the same time be an integral part of the whole created, as if with a single breath. Of course, this task is not easy. And often the sum of sheets that the artist calls a series is not essentially one.

The composition of the series varies. Thus, a series can be built on a contrasting comparison of sheets, or, on the contrary, on their even, identical sound. In another case, the author can begin his serial story, gradually increasing its emotional tension, creating in one or several pages a kind of culmination of action and feelings and closing it with an ending.

This is how, for example, a large cycle of lithographs by A. F. Pakhomov “Leningrad in the days of the siege and liberation” was compiled, published with a text by the poet N. S. Tikhonov in 1946. This cycle was the first major performance in easel graphics by A. F. Pakhomov (born 1900), a master of children's books, known for his illustrations for the works of N. A. Nekrasov and I. S. Turgenev. Pakhomov's lithographs are eyewitness accounts, and they touch us with the truth of what was seen, with the light of great human solidarity and courage.

The series opens with the sheet “Seeing off the people’s militia”, It immediately takes us into an atmosphere of anxiety, confusion, disturbed happy life. Further events develop quickly, the life of the city changes, shelling and bombing become an integral part of it. Leningraders build bunkers on the streets, stand guard on rooftops during alarms, and rescue the wounded from destroyed houses. All this is shown in lithographs, quickly replacing each other, detailed, like a story, but full of internal tension. In them, time is compacted and saturated, people act without wasting a minute, and bravely fight the enemy.

The next page of the album - “To the Neva for Water” (ill. 14) takes us out of the fast rhythm of these episodes. Here time passes slowly - it is the heavy tread of the cold and hungry days of the Leningrad blockade. A girl with an unbearably heavy bucket is moving slowly up the stairs. This heroine Pakhomova is one of the strongest images not only of the series, but of all military graphics. The viewer's gaze first of all stops at the girl's face - this is how the composition of the lithograph is structured, this is how the exceptional expressiveness of this face dictates. The artist developed his facial expressions in detail - expressing deep fatigue dark eyes they seem especially large on a thinner face, frowning eyebrows are drawn together in a sharp movement, the bloodless lips of a half-open mouth are so pale that they almost do not stand out on the face and the artist slightly outlines their outline with a line. It would seem that the image of this girl would be the embodiment of fatigue and suffering. But the most remarkable thing about him is the combination of these traits of physical fatigue and exhaustion with mental firmness.

The steadfastness and insubordination of Pakhomov’s heroine is a complex fusion of many aspects of her spiritual life, her internal qualities, and at the same time this is her main quality that prevails over all others. Here, along with Pakhomov’s usual simplicity and artless clarity of the image, its versatility and depth are born. Pakhomov is always especially close to the images of children. And in this lithograph he was able to tell a lot, showing how a girl pours water from a kettle; For her, this is a matter in which she is completely absorbed - both a necessity and at the same time a game. This combination contains aching pain, it contains genuine life under siege with its notes of acute tragedy in the midst of everyday life. The snowy expanse of the river and the freezing clear winter air are well conveyed in lithography. This sheet, like the next drawing “To the hospital”, is the most powerful, filled with feeling. They form, as it were, the culmination of the series. Further, the artist’s story is told more calmly and, in accordance with the pace of events, his sheets become lighter and more joyful: “Krovelitsytsy”, “New Year’s Eve” and others. The series logically ends with a picture of the fireworks display on January 27, 1944 in honor of the Soviet Army breaking the blockade of the city, a fireworks display that so deeply and joyfully excites people, evoking a whole string of memories and hopes. Under the lights of the fireworks, people rejoice in different ways: noisily, completely surrendering to the bright triumph of this moment, and thoughtfully, slightly retreating into memories, and deeply, with all their hearts, feeling the safety of their children. Excitement and joy unite them, and the close composition of the sheet makes this solidity visible and visible.

Many works by other artists are dedicated to wartime Leningrad. Let us also mention a series of linocuts by S. B. Yudovin (1892 - 1954). We saw how in Pakhomov’s series the lithography technique allowed the artist to present each picture he conceived in detail, delving into the details, combining their linear subtlety with the picturesqueness of the melting expanses of the winter landscape. Yudovin’s series is executed in linocut. Yudovin is characterized by heightened feelings, tragic notes sound powerfully in his sheets. And the entire figurative structure of his sheets, and the manner of execution are subordinated to this feeling of the tragedy of what is happening. The heavy black color and cold glow of snow reign in his engravings. In the freezing silence of the city, people trudge with difficulty, bending under the weight of the burden, under the burden of the siege’s troubles. Their figures, which are usually seen as if from above, stand out sharply against the backdrop of the snowy streets. Angular design, merciless light, snatching siennas from the darkness; everyday life that became the frame of the tragedy - these are Yudovin’s engravings. It is in vain to reproach the artist for their harsh truthfulness, for their lack of optimism. The nature of Yudovin’s talent allowed him to express with particular sensitivity the tragic aspects of the Leningraders’ struggle with the enemy.

But the graphics as a whole were characterized by a brighter view of the world, even when depicting the trials that befell the Soviet people. We could see this already in Pakhomov’s series and we will find new confirmation of this by getting acquainted with the series of drawings by D. A. Shmarinov “We ​​will not forget, we will not forgive!” Shmarinov (born 1907) is one of those artists through whose efforts Soviet book illustration achieved great success in the 1930s. He received good professional training in the art studios of Prahov in Kyiv and Kardovsky in Moscow. His talent as a psychologist and great internal culture distinguish his book works. During the war years, Shmarinov created posters and easel drawings. Series "We will not forget, we will not forgive!" was performed by him in 1942 in a short time, but its concept was formed throughout the first year of the war.

The artist’s story begins not gradually, but from the outset - he immediately shocks us with the high tragedy of the “Execution” drawing. Pictures of the trials and tribulations of war follow one after another, but the bright theme of the courage of the Soviet people, which arose from the first page of the series, wins even in its most bitter pages. One of best drawings This cycle is the sheet “Return” (Fig. 15). Thousands of Soviet collective farmers were familiar in their lives with the situation in which the woman depicted by the artist finds herself. Shmarinov painted her at the moment when the sight of her ruined, destroyed home first opened up to her eyes, forcing her to stop in a kind of stupor of sorrowful and indignant thought. Her deep excitement is almost not manifested outwardly. This is the restraint of a strong person who does not allow himself an explosion of feelings, a moment of despair. And how much the landscape tells the viewer here! The transparent purity of the air, the brightness of the sun's glare and shadows sliding across the thawed ground - this picture of early spring, full of charm, brings joy to the complex subtext of the scene. Liszt begins to sound like a lyrical story, and this is very characteristic of Shmarinov’s talent. Shmarinov’s drawings, executed in charcoal and black watercolor, go through many stages in the process of work. But they happily avoid dry external completeness, preserving the reverent liveliness of the strokes, as if they had just been laid by the artist.

Only in the last two pages of the series - “Return” and “Meeting” - there are no images of the fascists, and although joy is still very far away here, the atmosphere becomes brighter, the heroes breathe easier. Harsh life the first year of the war, the events of which the artist summarized, suggested to him the composition of the series - the unrelenting tragic tension of most of its pages and the bright notes of the last drawings.

During the war years, V. A. Favorsky (born 1886), one of the oldest Soviet artists and a great master of wood engraving, also turned to easel graphics. Throughout his career, book illustration attracted his attention to the greatest extent. And now Soviet and foreign viewers admire, first of all, the harmonious epic world of his engravings for “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign”, the tragedy and depth of the illustrations for “Boris Godunov”, the polysyllabic, full of philosophical generalizations and sometimes harsh, sometimes captivating shades of life in a series of engravings for “Little tragedies" of Pushkin. But already at the end of the 1920s, Favorsky also created a wonderful portrait of F. M. Dostoevsky - a completely independent thing, although, of course, closely related to the writer’s books. Light and shadow are at odds in this disturbing leaf; the image of a man overwhelmed by a whirlwind of painful thoughts is carefully and powerfully sculpted. Here we come into contact with a spiritual life of exceptional intensity, we discern an inner world full of contradictions and struggle. Great skill is felt in the free variety of strokes and the wise use of color.

In the 1940s, Favorsky created the sheets “Minin and Pozharsky”, “Kutuzov”. The artist was not alone in his creative appeal to the glorious pages of the history of our Motherland; They naturally attracted special attention from painters and graphic artists during the war years. In the Samarkand series of rhythmically thin linocuts executed at the same time, the flow Everyday life captured with unhurried grace and laconicism. The white background, which plays a large role in all of her sheets, emphasizes the grace of silhouettes and the musicality of simple but thoughtful compositions.

Later, the artist more than once turned to easel graphics (sheet “Flying Birds”, 1959; see frontispiece, etc.), but book illustration occupied him to an immeasurably greater extent.

A prominent place in wartime graphics belongs to the works of L. V. Soifertis (born 1911). Soyfertis previously worked in the field of magazine satirical graphics, and now he often appears on the pages of the Krokodil magazine. During the war, he took part in battles in Sevastopol, Novorossiysk, and Odessa. Soyfertis had to see a lot of hard things in the war, death was close to him more than once, but his bright and light talent extracted from this not fierce battle scenes, not tragedy and death, but the smile of life, remaining itself even under bombing. A peculiar wit and amusement characterize the situations depicted by him. The sailor hurries to the front line in besieged Sevastopol, and the boys - together for speed - diligently shine his shoes. “Once upon a time” is the name of this sheet. There is an air battle over the city in the sunny sky, women are watching it, and the old woman is calmly sewing something, sitting right there on a chair at the gate. Sailors at the newspaper window are reading the latest news, standing in a close group, bristling with rifle bayonets (Fig. 16), a sailor and a photographer are located in a bomb crater - they need a picture for a party document. All of this, obviously, can be called everyday episodes, but this is everyday life established two steps from the front line, and the most unpretentious, even funny at first glance, scenes here are filled with the breath of great courage and heroism. Genuine grace distinguishes Soifertis's drawings. And if in Favorsky’s “Samarkand Series” the chased lines and silhouettes of linocuts were graceful, in Soyfertis the light, brittle, seemingly careless lines are graceful and beautiful outline drawing and a living, breathing, slightly tinted transparent watercolor wash.

Soifertis remains an artist of fleeting smiles and great sympathy for people in his drawings of the 1950s. His “Metro” series is a series of genre scenes noticed in the hustle and bustle of Moscow’s underground palaces, and the drawings and etchings dedicated to children are still surprisingly vigilantly seen, still illuminated by a demanding interest in man. Sometimes touching and funny, sometimes mocking and even slightly grotesque, gaining poignancy in comparisons, these sheets always reveal to us some new features of life, something new in the usual flow of everyday life.

A large amount of material accumulated during the war did not fit quietly into the archives of artists. Many of them continued to work on military topics after the end of the war. Especially many drawings and engravings about the war were shown at the exhibitions of the first years of peace. At the same time, the work of graphic artists naturally followed the path of generalizing their knowledge and visual impressions, along the path from a sketch and sketch to an easel sheet and an entire graphic series. Thus, several series of lithographs based on materials from his military sketches were executed in 1946 - 1950 by the artist V. V. Bogatkin (b. 1922). During the war years, Bogatkin was just beginning his creative work. He drew a lot; one of his drawings, depicting a young soldier on the banks of the Tisza (1945), gained considerable fame. But the main area of ​​his work was landscape. The silence of the deserted streets of besieged Leningrad, darkened Moscow, Berlin in the days of the collapse of fascism, mountains of broken equipment on its streets, soviet tanks at the Brandenburg Gate are captured by Bogatkin in his lithographs. Over the years, the accuracy of what we saw contained in these sheets, created in the hot wake of the war, is increasingly appreciated by us.

In the late 1940s and early 1950s, the picture of the development of easel graphics was complex and largely contradictory. The artists managed to notice and convey certain very significant facets of our life and, above all, show a person who went through the war, the joy of his return to work, and his passionate thirst for creation. This was especially evident in some works devoted to collective farm labor; the beauty of the peaceful fields of our Motherland was felt in them as a newfound, conquered heritage. At the same time, in the stream of drawings depicting Soviet people and their work, the features of illustrativeness and poverty of thoughts and feelings were clearly reflected. Prosaic documentation prevented many artists in these works from rising to the level of poetic generalization of our life. Many drawings and engravings appeared on historical and revolutionary themes, the artists devoted their strength and talent to creating them, but the influence of the cult of personality was especially hard on them. It prevented artists from creating works of great ideological intensity and led in some works to incorrect coverage of the role of the people as the creator of history.

The graphics of these years developed one-sidedly in technical terms. Many graphic techniques were hardly used; ink, charcoal and black watercolor drawings predominated. Only in the field of landscapes were real watercolor paintings and some types of engravings common. But the variety of techniques often coexisted in the landscape with the internal passivity of things.

On the other hand, works of great artistic merit were also created during these years. Thus, during this period, the original and strong talent of B. I. Prorokov, now one of the leading masters of Soviet graphics, developed. Prorokov’s work is closely connected with the years of war, with what the artist saw and experienced at that time. But Prorokov not only returned all these years with the memory of his heart to the war, he managed to say with his art the most necessary words about peace.

B.I. Prorokov was born in 1911 in Ivanovo-Voznesensk. His penchant for drawing began early, in high school. His school drawings, sent to the Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper competition, were awarded first prize. This gave their author the right to receive a ticket to the Higher Art and Technical Institute (Vkhutein). However, studying there gave Prorokov little and it lasted less than two years. Only the advice of the greatest master of political graphics, D. S. Moor, who taught lithography, was very valuable for Prorokov. Without receiving any special education, Prorokov went through a good school - political and artistic - while working at Komsomolskaya Pravda and subsequently at the Krokodil magazine. On assignments for the newspaper, he traveled a lot around the country; as a newspaperman, he learned to make a large supply of sketches for future use in order to quickly complete any task. Most of Prorokov's pre-war works are caricatures of internal and international themes. Individual posters, also executed by him, and in particular a sheet exposing the bestial anti-humanistic nature of fascism, already foreshadowed the journalistic intensity, passion and sharpness of his future works.

From the first months of the war, Prorokov worked in the newspaper of the garrison of the Hanko Peninsula, which heroically withstood the siege of the enemy.

“We are sometimes embarrassed to speak about the feat of a man of art as loudly as about the feat of a soldier or commander, until a writer or artist happens to replace a killed commander in battle and lead the defense of a height,” wrote a participant in the defense of Hanko, who spoke about it in the story “The Gangutians.” Vl. Rudny. - But I don’t imagine a persistent struggle of the sailors of Gangut * ( * Hanko peninsula was called Gangut during the time of Peter I) in the forty-first year without prophetic laughter and satire, without his daily pictorial feuilletons, engravings, portraits, cut out due to the lack of zinc for cliches on linoleum, torn from the floors of houses destroyed by the war." The artist left Hanko with the last detachments of "sailors. Kronstadt and Leningrad under siege, Malaya Zemlya near Novorossiysk, Berlin and Port Arthur - these are the milestones of his military journey. And everywhere, even in the most difficult conditions and right on the front line, the artist painted a lot.

Prorokov’s first post-war series, “In Kuomintang China,” was created by him on the basis of what he saw in the Far East immediately after the defeat of the Japanese militarists. Small in volume, it only outlines some features of the life of the Chinese people, still experiencing colonial oppression and fighting for their national liberation. But the author’s passion for life is already fully reflected here. With sympathy, the artist depicts the Chinese partisan - a simple, modest and brave young man, with hatred and ridicule - the elegant Americans who staged inhumane rickshaw races; he shares, it seems to us, both the frenzy of a frantic speaker at a meeting, and the heavy fatigue of a rickshaw puller crouched under the scorching sun next to a carriage. In Prorokov’s next works we will, as it were, feel his author’s voice, his always ardent indignation or love, and therefore his works will captivate us with special force.

In the subsequent cycles of drawings “Here it is, America!” and "For peace!" The voice of Prorokov the publicist grew stronger. Everyday life in his pages acquires the angry power of political exposure of imperialism. In the drawing “Tanks of the Aggressor to the Bottom,” the artist in a moving, pathetic image shows the will of the workers for peace, the strength of their solidarity. A gust of indignation unfettered the forces and rallied a monolithic group of people throwing a tank into the water. Liszt is laconic in composition, full of the pathos of struggle; it can easily withstand high magnification, and more than once supporters of peace outside the borders of our country carried it as a poster at demonstrations. Series "Here it is, America!" was performed by Prorokov as an illustration for a book of pamphlets and essays about America. But it essentially turned into an easel cycle - the content of its sheets is so independent, clear and without text. In the same way, Prorokov’s later illustrations for the book “Mayakovsky on America” acquired easel features. The appeal to Mayakovsky was deeply logical in Prorokov’s work. The artist is very close to the passionate intensity of Mayakovsky’s poems, and their characteristic alternation of anger and sarcasm, and bold allegorical images, and the obligatory political assessment of phenomena.

In all his works performed after the war, Prorokov fights for peace, exposes imperialism, the inhumanity of its colonial policies, and its militaristic plans. But the artist’s most powerful statement for peace was his series “This Must Not Happen Again!”, in which for the first time after the fighting died down he touched upon war visions that had not left his heart.

Two sheets of opposite mood are highlighted in his series: on one - “Hiroshima” - a doomed face still looking at us from the hell of an atomic explosion, on the other - a young mother, with a weapon in her hands protecting a child, defending a bright life on earth. Between these two sheets, as if in a frame, there are a string of war pictures. In them, people struggle with the death that fascism brings; and at the hour of death they despise the enemy, just as a young woman despises the executioners, in whose eyes there is a bloody vision of Babyn Yar (ill. 17). There are no details to dissipate the enormous tension, each leaf is feelings taken at their highest moment, this is pain that is not yet destined to end. Sharp silhouettes and close-ups are chosen here as mandatory artistic techniques. Only an artist of great courage and ardent faith in people could repeat to us with such stunning power the cruel truth about the past war. His pages filled with pain, anger and suffering leave no one indifferent. The testament of the Czech communist J. Fucik “People, be vigilant!” sounds for us again in this series by the Soviet artist.

Among the works dedicated to V.I. Lenin, drawings by the greatest master of book illustration, E.A. Kibrik (born 1906), stand out. In individual sheets of the series, the artist, who carefully studied materials related to Lenin’s activities in the year of the revolution, not only mastered the first truth of external similarity, but also moved further to the depths of internal characteristics.

The sheet “V.I. Lenin in Underground” (ill. 18) reproduces the July days of 1917, when Lenin, living in Petrograd, was forced to hide from the bloodhounds of the Provisional Government. How did the artist himself imagine the plot of this drawing? According to him, here he wanted to show Lenin the theorist, scientist, thinker, who spoke daily in those days with articles that armed the party in its struggle for the dictatorship of the proletariat; the artist described the specific moment that needed to be depicted as follows: “...Lenin, as was typical for him, walked around the room, pondering the enormous material that life brought every day and in which he had to grasp the most important thing, what "We need to target the party with another article in Pravda. Having found this main thing, he quickly sat down at the table, immediately forgetting about everything in the world and immersed himself in work." It is characteristic that Kibrik imagines an image in motion and, drawing a single moment in a chain of others, takes into account the preceding one. The silence of a small, secluded room is full of the tension of great labor. The artist was able to convey Levin’s busyness and absorption in his work well through the concentrated expression of his face and his pose as a man quickly writing.

The drawing “V.I. Lenin in Razliv” has a different mood: it has excitement, a restrained impulse. The flow of Lenin's thoughts is far from the surroundings, and the expanses of the lakeside landscape also seem to expand the boundaries of the page. In the book cited above, Kibrik describes in detail the process of his work on these compositions, and anyone who is familiar with his drawings will be interested in reading these pages,

By the mid-1950s, wonderful things about our modernity appeared in the graphics. The artist Yu. I. Pimenov - painter, graphic artist and theater decorator - with his large series "Moscow Region" opened for us a whole big world, full of the bright joy of life. Pimenov has a rare gift for poetic description of everyday life, the ability to see the beauty of everyday life. And beauty, noticed in the ordinary, always finds its especially close paths to the viewer’s heart. The heated air of a hot day in the Moscow region and the figure of a girl on a plank bridge, perky workers at the construction site of new houses and the shine of rain on a Moscow outskirts square - these are the simple subjects of Pimenov’s drawings and watercolors. “For a genre artist, it seems to me,” he wrote, “the most precious finds are those authentic pieces of life seen, where in ordinary, unimagined, real cases of every day the great truth of the country is revealed.” The rapid working rhythm of our time, its special, energetic and business-like beauty live in the artist’s works (see cover). Activity, activity, may be the main charm of Pimenov’s images, and in particular, his constant heroines - women working at construction sites, busy renovating apartments, sewing, and household chores. The light, light coloring of his watercolors adds a festive touch to even the most seemingly ordinary scenes and things. The artist also brings great picturesqueness to the technique of black watercolor and charcoal. With gradations of black, he is able to convey the depth of shadows cast by trees on the water, and the transparent cold of early spring, and the freshness of rain on the station platform, and the resinous comfort of a forest road. Pimenov is a very complete artist. His angle of view on the world, the circle of his favorite subjects remains the same in a series of picturesque things from the 1940s - 1950s - genre scenes, still lifes, which so simply and poetically tell about his contemporary, and in his graphics, and even in prose - in a book about the Moscow region written by with ardent passion, swiftly, gracefully and easily, with a purely artistic vision of life in its truly beautiful, multi-colored guises.

Life in motion, new and joyful, born every day, Pimenov hurries to capture in his later series “New Quarters”.

Having visited abroad more than once in the 1950s, Pimenov created a whole series of small canvases and sketches based on his impressions from these trips or directly during his travels. His gaze here remains, first of all, the gaze of a man in love with beauty; journalism is not characteristic of him. But the sadness-covered lyrics of some of his foreign works involuntarily sound like a contrast to the ringing happiness of his sheets, dedicated to ordinary days and affairs of our lives.

Pimenov's foreign works were not alone in our schedule. In the 1950s and beyond, when our country’s international cultural ties expanded and many artists visited various countries around the world, a whole group of series appeared based on impressions from these trips. They usually contained scenes of street life, landscapes, and individual portrait sheets. The artists talked about what they saw, showing picturesque corners nature, famous monuments of architecture and sculpture, features of everyday life encountered on people’s trips. Forced fluency characterized most of these works. But as a result of travel, complete series were created in which reportage and sketchiness were replaced by real artistic generalization. From getting to know such cycles, the viewer received not only a chain of vivid tourist impressions, but also new knowledge of a particular country and aesthetic pleasure.

One of these things was the series by N. A. Ponomarev (born 1918) “Northern Vietnam”, created in 1957. The image of this country, seen by the artist, is full of charm: a gray-blue high sky, expanses of calm waters, rice fields and a chain of lilac rocks on the horizon, sometimes clearly visible, sometimes melting into a pearl haze. The calm, slightly contemplative poetry of everyday life lives in these sheets. People are depicted with deep sympathy - the modest, hardworking people of Vietnam - fishermen, miners, women going to the market (ill. 19), waiting for the crossing at the bay. Delicate and subtle coloring gives expressiveness to the drawings. The Vietnam series was in many ways a turning point for its author. The artist began his career with charcoal and black gouache drawings dedicated to the miners of Donbass (1949-1950). They had a lot of conscientiousness and work and less creative inspiration. Painting Vietnam, the artist discovered in his work not only new poetic notes, but also the abilities of a colorist who knows how to see the harmony and decorativeness of mixed techniques of gouache and pastel.

Of the series performed based on foreign impressions, the works of O. G. Vereisky (born 1915) were also interesting. O. Vereisky, now a prominent illustrator of books by Soviet writers and an easel graphic artist, owes his first knowledge of art to his father G. S. Vereisky. He also studied at the Academy of Arts in Leningrad. With equal freedom, O. Vereisky masters both the soft painterly tone of drawing in black watercolor or ink and the bright contrasts of a clear, defined pen drawing technique. Recently, the artist has become interested in some engraving techniques, and repeated some of his drawings, executed as a result of trips to Egypt, Syria and Lebanon, in prints. One of the best among them is a sheet called “Rest on the Road. Syria” (ill. 20). It is beautiful in color and laconic composition, but its main charm is in the image of a woman. The exquisite beauty and slight sadness of the face, the restrained tenderness of the gesture and the natural grace of the woman are reproduced by the artist with real aesthetic pleasure. The pages of the “American Series” of O. Vereisky, who saw not only the ceremonial, but also the shadow, everyday features of American life, are also full of accurate observations.

Our knowledge about this country is also supplemented by the elegant, linear sketches of V. Goryaev, an artist with a sharp, somewhat sarcastic manner, an illustrator of Mark Twain, and a regular contributor to the Crocodile magazine.

Post-war graphics are characterized by great success artists of the union republics. The strongest graphic teams have now formed in Ukraine, Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia. Both drawing and watercolor have their own great artists in these republics, and the art of printmaking was developed here and then, when in the late 1940s - early 1950s in the RSFSR it was in decline.

As an example of Ukrainian easel graphics, one can cite the series “Ukrainian National Dumas and Songs” by M. Deregus. Broadly conceived, including sheets of various moods and themes, this cycle characterizes the maturity of Ukrainian graphics, although in the work of Deregus himself - a landscape painter and illustrator par excellence - it stands somewhat apart. The sadness and hope of the page “The Thought of Marus Boguslavka” and the tragedy of loneliness, deceived faith in people in the page of “The Thought of the Three Azov Brothers” are replaced by the courageous poetry of our days in the composition “The Thought of the Partisans” with the central image of Kovpak. Young Ukrainian artists V. Panfilov, who dedicated his engravings to steelworkers, and I. Selivanov, who created sheets on historical and revolutionary themes, are working successfully in printmaking. A typical genre for Ukrainian graphics is the industrial landscape, usually executed in engraving techniques. Its masters are V. Mironenko, A. Pashchenko, N. Rodzin and others.

In the Baltic republics, landscape graphics are very diverse. There is a strong current of chamber lyrical landscape here, emotional and with great charm. Its creators are Estonian artists, engravers R. Kaljo, A. Kaerend, L. Ennosaar, watercolorist K. Burman (junior), Latvian graphic artists A. Junker, Lithuanian N. Kuzminskis and others. Their works contain lyrical reflections, soul-enriching close communication with nature, and each time a new understanding of the beauty of their native fields, picturesque ancient Tallinn, etc.

In the work of the oldest Estonian draftsman G. Reindorf, landscape images acquire a more philosophical overtones. It is now difficult for us to fully imagine the long creative path of this artist, since almost all of his pre-war works were lost during the Great Patriotic War. But also post-war period his activities are fruitful. Reindorf was born in 1889 in St. Petersburg. Having successfully graduated from the Stieglitz School of Technical Drawing, he received the right to travel abroad and went to France. The short period of retirement abroad was interrupted by the First World War. Returning to his homeland, Reindorf works in the field of applied and landscape graphics and is engaged in teaching activities. His main creative interests in the 1940s - 1950s were landscape and, partly, book illustration. He performed his works during these years mainly in the form of drawings; Previously, the artist also created expressive engraving sheets. Reindorf's desire for objective accuracy of depiction sometimes comes at the expense of the emotional richness of his sheets, but in his best works these two principles are combined. The most characteristic in this regard are his sheets “On the Hot Days of August” (1955). A peculiar harmony unites everything living in this rural landscape, and the masterly technique of drawing with a graphite pencil gives the sheets a tonal richness and a special filigree of execution.

There is also a line of romantic landscape in the Baltic graphics, saturated with the pathos of stormy, restless human feelings. In the engravings of Latvian artists P. Upitis, O. Abelite, and in individual sheets by M. Ozoliņš, images of nature are colored with acute emotionality and are full of internal tension.

In the etchings of Riga resident E. Anderson, the landscape becomes the environment where the majestic action of labor unfolds.

Many Baltic artists act both as landscape painters and as authors of thematic works, and this only enriches their works. In the versatile work of the Estonian artist E. K. Okas (b. 1915), for example, one can find landscape paintings, portraits, and thematic things. Okas was born in Tallinn into a working-class family and studied there - first at the State Art and Industrial School, and then at the State Higher Art School. During the Great Patriotic War he worked as a front-line artist. Okas is both a painter and a master of book illustration. But if the images he created for book pages are sometimes separated from us by decades and centuries, the heroes of his easel works always live in modernity, breathing its far from serene atmosphere. A sense of the complexity of the modern world with its acute social contradictions fills, for example, the sheets of the Dutch and Italian series of travel sketches by Okas, fundamentally executed by him in various engraving techniques. Vigilant and brutally truthful, these engravings sound like real journalism. The Lithuanian artist V. Jurkunas (born 1910) also works in both book and easel graphics. He graduated from Kaunas Art School in 1935 and is constantly engaged in teaching activities. In his engravings, people seem especially closely connected with their native nature, their native land. These are the heroes of the poem by Maironis (1960; ill. 21), reproduced by him, such is the little collective farmer who has won the sympathy of many viewers - the image of youth walking along a beautiful land, ingenuously simple and perky, stunning with the unique integrity of feelings ("I'll Be a Milkmaid", 1960). The linocut technique in V. Jurkunas's sheets is both laconic and flexible; it naturally serves to create his bright, optimistic images.

The Baltic traffickers work with passion in the field of portraiture, and if among the works of artists of the RSFSR we now have, in addition to the invariably successful, but already rare performances of G. S. Vereisky, only the sharply characteristic etching portraits of M. Feigin, in the Baltics we will be pleased with the subtle and varied craftsmanship a number of portrait painters.

The Estonian artist E. Einmann (born 1913) achieved a lot in this genre. He was educated at the State School of Applied Arts and the Higher art school in Tallinn, his creative path began during the Great Patriotic War. Now in a long series of his works the features of his talent are clearly visible. The artist’s attitude towards the inner world of his models is thoughtful and caring. Respect for people is a characteristic feature of his work. It always appears, whether the artist paints an old fisherman or a young student of a vocational school, a nurse or an actress. At the same time, the author’s direct experience and assessment of the model remain somewhere aside; the main thing becomes a restrained and objective story about it. Einmann's portraits captivate with the subtlety of their graphic style, alien to external effects. This subtlety distinguishes his sheets, executed in graphite or Italian pencil, watercolor, and lithography.

The portrait work of the Estonian artist A. Bach-Liimand, who is especially good at portraying women and children, appears emotional and lyrical. The portraits and self-portrait of the Lithuanian artist A. Makunaite, who works in linocut, are full of serious thoughts. The charcoal portraits created by the young Latvian draftswoman F. Pauluk are expressive.

Graphics in Ukraine and the Baltic states has long traditions and therefore its successes are in many ways natural. But even in such republics as, for example, Kyrgyzstan or Kazakhstan, where graphic art is very young, it has already made noticeable progress.

The leading graphic artist in Kyrgyzstan is a graduate of the Moscow Printing Institute, who has been working in the city of Frunze for many years, L. Ilyina (born 1915). Monumentality, large forms, laconicism - character traits her linocut. IN last years Ilyina, somewhat moving away from book illustration, performs many easel works, and in particular the landscape series of woodcuts “Native Lands” (1957), and a large series of color linocuts, dedicated to a woman of his republic. The features of the new that distinguish our lives are perhaps especially noticeable in the women's destinies shown by the Kyrgyz artist. Labor does not bend women now, but only gives majesty and significance to their posture. A free, relaxed attitude distinguishes both the beet-growing girl (1956) and the delegates of the distant Tien Shan, listening attentively to the speaker (1960). Linocuts by L. Ilyina are plastic, the volume is freely sculpted in them with a lively, rough stroke, large spots of color. At the same time, the silhouette decorativeness of the sheet is always preserved (ill. 22).

In Azerbaijan, the artist M. Rahman-zade (born 1916) is working interestingly in the field of color lithography, depicting offshore oil fields in the Caspian Sea. She knows how to introduce into her series a variety of motifs that seem to be similar and, at the same time, each time revealing something new in the industrial landscape. The sheet "Overpass" from her works of 1957 stands out among others due to the harmony of the composition, the sonorous combination of the bright yellow tone of the water and the black openwork of the structures. These are some of the achievements of Republican engravers and draftsmen.

The graphics of today are very different from the graphics of the first post-war decade. What new, so different from the previous one, appeared in it? If earlier modernity was captured with a true poetic generalization only in individual things, now its living features are scattered in many graphic works. The massive turn of artists towards modernity is yielding results. Modernity is being mastered in its not external, deep features; artists are discovering, as it were, a new face of our country, of Soviet people. In many ways, the graphics of recent years have something in common with painting. The artists of these arts see the harsh and swift face of time; a special active worldview permeates their work. And the craving for new, untested artistic forms also turns out to be common to them. In graphics, all this primarily relates to printmaking. Its rise began in the mid-1950s, and now we can talk about its real heyday. This flourishing is associated primarily with the influx of new young forces into easel engraving. But already experienced artists also contributed to him. In the landscapes of A. Vedernikov, for example, Leningrad, burdened with many traditions of its depiction, unexpectedly appears in such a new appearance, sparkling with pure colors, that it seems to be seen for the first time. Vedernikov's color lithography technique does not imitate either colored pencil drawing or detailed watercolor painting. The artist operates with generalized forms, bold combinations of several pure tones. His search for decorativeness in color lithography is one of many that is now characteristic of printmaking.

Among the successes of printmaking we include the woodcuts of F. D. Konstantinov about rural labor, and especially his landscape sheet “Spring on the Collective Farm” (1957; ill. 23), and the landscapes of the Armenian artist M. M. Abegyan - “The Rocky Shore of Zangi”, "In the Bjni Mountains" (1959) and many other works by artists of the older and middle generations.

But the new, which distinguishes modern printmaking, is felt especially clearly in the things of young people. I. Golitsyn, A. Ushin, G. Zakharov, Y. Manukhin, I. Resets, L. Tukachev, K. Nazarov, V. Popkov, D. Nodia, I. Nekrasov, V. Volkov - a whole galaxy of young people who performed brilliantly in print. We see ordinary suburban landscapes in “Seeing Off Suite” by A. Ushin (born 1927), a student of the Leningrad Art and Pedagogical School (ill. 24). In its pages, no events happen, only electric trains rush in silence, and at the same time, a lot happens here - steel trusses supporting wires rise up, sheaves of light from the train window tear through the thick darkness of the night, white lightning of the rain crosses it, and clouds are piled up in a dazzling heap in the black skies - life is going on, unique, alive, felt very keenly, in its most active, intense state. It is this acute, active perception of life in its constant dynamics that distinguishes many of the works of the young. It unites their works. But, in addition, young people are very individual in their creativity. Each of the named artists already has his own face in art, his own judgment about life, his own understanding of the engraving language.

The spacious landscapes and lyrical scenes of G. Zakharov with their emphasized rhythm of large black and white strokes and spots sound unique. The thoughtful, slightly ironic landscapes-novels of I. Golitsyn are detailed, where each house is a whole story about the life of a huge city, and a street intersection unfolds for us in an instant and somewhat pessimistic vision a scroll of human everyday life. Golitsyn's flexible silver engraving technique was largely influenced by Favorsky. The subtlety of woodcuts, its tonal richness, so subservient to Favorsky, seemed to broaden the horizons of Golitsyn, an artist of the larger, more masculine technique of linocut (ill. 25),

A little harsh, significant and in its most ordinary manifestations life flows 24. A. A. At the tires. Rain. 1960 of a big city in etchings by Leningrader V. Volkov. Free from the hustle and bustle of little things, his sheets monumentalize reality, as if revealing its courageous, majestic rhythm in the flow of everyday life. And the people are shown by the artist in one but essential aspect - these are stern, taciturn people of labor.

Georgian artist D. Nodia actively and dynamically sees the industrial landscape and scenes of labor. The transparent world of youth, a wonderful fusion of childish clarity of soul and adult subtlety of mental movements, is revealed by Ya. Manukhin in the fragile image of his popular “Blaade of Grass.”

The same artist, in an engraving dedicated to the struggle for peace, achieves a special expression of an image that embodies the anger and pain of Hiroshima. At the same time, Manukhin learned a lot from the closeness of his easel sheet to the art of posters (ill. 26).

V. Popkov (ill. 27), who has been interestingly speaking in recent years as a painter, talks in detail and with enthusiasm about the work of transport workers in a series of engravings and gouaches. In all these works, young artists reveal to us different facets of our modernity, seen in their own way and very freshly.

Of course, not everything in printmaking is successful now. Small everyday life writing and illustrative art are also found here. We often encounter them in series devoted to labor, as well as with boring protocol in the industrial landscape. There are also things whose entire meaning is exhausted by their external decorativeness. On the other hand, the new things that were discovered in recent years in printmaking were also born in drawing, although such a powerful group of young people did not appear here. Indicative in this regard is the creative path of V. E. Tsigal (born 1916). It began in the first post-war years with a series of ink and watercolor drawings in which the life and work of Soviet people were shown authentically, and often lyrically and warmly, but still without great artistic discoveries. Tsigal was partly hampered in this by his excessive activity, his desire to cover with his art too wide a range of life phenomena. Tsigal worked quickly, large series of his sheets appeared at almost all major exhibitions. But real creative concentration came to him only when, having begun to travel and study the life of peasants in the mountain villages of Dagestan, he became fascinated for a relatively long time with this one topic, which was, of course, quite rewarding for the artist. This is how his series “Dagestan” (1959 - 1961) appeared, which was a big step forward for Tsigal. In this cycle there is the unlost charm of the novelty of the life of the mountaineers revealed to the artist, and some very hidden everyday features noticed by a friendly glance, and a peculiar feeling of harmony between man and nature. Its pages are built on a subtle comparison of motifs that are common in Dagestan, but suddenly clearly reveal to us the specifics of the way of life and the relationships between people, eternal and at the same time somewhat elusively modern (ill. 28).

In the current rise of easel graphics, the complex/subtle art of watercolor has also found its place. In watercolor, you especially need the right eye and a quick, precise hand. It makes adjustments almost impossible, and the movement of the brush with paint and water is deceptively easy and requires strict discipline from the artist. But the coloristic possibilities of watercolor are rich, and the translucency of the paper under a transparent layer of paint gives it a unique lightness and grace. “Watercolor is a painting that secretly would like to become a graphic. Watercolor is a graphic that becomes a painting politely and delicately, building its achievements not on killing paper, but on the outlandish revelation of its elastic and unsteady surface,” one of them once wrote the greatest experts in Soviet graphics A. A. Sidorov. The masters of watercolor now, as in the 1930s, are primarily landscape painters. The works of S. Boym, N. Volkov, G. Khrapak, S. Semenov, V. Alfeevsky, D. Genin, A. Mogilevsky and many others show life modern city, nature in the richness of its colors, in its beautiful diversity. And passive descriptiveness finds its home less and less often in the landscape.

These are some of the features of modern Soviet graphics. However, its picture is so complex and rich that it certainly deserves a separate description. Our goal was only to get acquainted with the work of the most famous masters of easel graphics and certain moments of its history.

The artist Yu. I. Pimenov, whose drawings were discussed above, wrote: “The path of the artist is the path of enchantment with life and the path of its expression, full of disappointments and failures. But in every sincere thing there appears a grain, a microparticle of the desired, and it finds somewhere - then an echo, somewhere a wave of this feeling is accepted and blossoms.” For the sake of this “grain of what is desired,” for the sake of the response wave of feeling, which is absolutely necessary for the artist, all his hard and joyful work is done.

Art- figurative understanding of reality; the process or result of expressing the internal or external (in relation to the creator) world in artistic image; creativity directed in such a way that it reflects interests not only of the author himself, but also of other people.

Today we will briefly tell you about the largest artists and sculptors from all over the world, and we will start with Russian artists.

Aivazovsky Ivan Konstantinovich(1817-1900), marine painter. Member of the St. Petersburg, Amsterdam, Rome, Florence and Stuttgart academies. Created about 6 thousand paintings. The most famous: “The Ninth Wave”, “Chesme Battle”.

Ivan Aivazovsky “The Ninth Wave”

Antropov Alexey Petrovich(1716-1795), portrait painter. He became widely known for his decorative paintings of palaces in St. Petersburg and its suburbs.

Antropov Alexey Petrovich – self-portrait

Argunov Ivan Petrovich(1729-1802), portrait painter. He painted ceremonial portraits, which were distinguished by precise and clear drawings and restrained coloring. Author of “Portrait of an unknown peasant woman in Russian costume” and others.

Argunov Ivan – Portrait of an unknown peasant woman in Russian costume

Arkhipov Abram Efimovich(1862-1930), master of plein air painting, sketches and genre paintings. He worked a lot on portraits, mainly of peasant women, and created life-affirming images of his contemporaries.

Borisov-Musatov Viktor Elpidiforovich(1870-1905), innovative artist. Paintings: “Girl on the balcony”, “By the pond”.

Borisov-Musatov Viktor Elpidiforovich – painting “By the Reservoir”

Borovikovsky Vladimir Lukich(1757-1825), portrait painter. He was commissioned for portraits by the highest-ranking persons of that time, members of the imperial family. The most famous were the portraits of Arsenyeva, Lopukhina, and Kurakino.

Borovikovsky Vladimir Lukich – Portrait of A. and V. Gagarin 1802

Bruni Fedor (Fidelio) Antonovich(1799-1875). Paintings: “The Death of Camilla, Horace’s Sister”, “The Copper Serpent”, etc., paintings of St. Isaac’s Cathedral in St. Petersburg.

Bryullov Karl Pavlovich(1799-1852). He wrote sketches and paintings on historical and mythological themes, but became more famous as a portrait painter. Paintings: “Horsewoman”, “Yu. P. Samoilova with a Little Arab”, “Bathsheba”, “Italian Afternoon”, etc. The portrait of Yu. P. Samoilova with her daughter is recognized as one of the best.

The most famous painting of Bryullov is Yu. P. Samoilov with his daughter

Vasnetsov Viktor Mikhailovich(1848-1926), Wanderer, author of paintings on historical and fairy-tale subjects. The most famous paintings are “After the massacre of Igor Svyatoslavovich with the Polovtsians”, “Alyonushka”. The most grandiose work is the painting “Bogatyrs”.

Vasnetsov Viktor Mikhailovich – painting “Bogatyrs”

Venetsianov Alexey Gavrilovich(1780-1847), one of the founders of the everyday genre in Russian painting. He painted many portraits of peasants and scenes of village life. Paintings: “The threshing floor”, “Sleeping shepherd”, “On the arable land. Spring”, “Head of an old peasant”.

Painting “The Sleeping Shepherd” – Alexey Venetsianov

Vereshchagin Vasily Vasilievich(1842-1904), master of the battle genre. He painted a series of paintings on religious subjects. Paintings: “Apotheosis of War”, “Everything is Calm on Shipka”.

“Apotheosis of War” – painting by Russian artist Vasily Vereshchagin

Vrubel Mikhail Alexandrovich(1856-1910). He was engaged in easel painting and monumental painting of churches. Paintings: “Demon Seated”, “Fortune Teller”, “Pan”, “Lilac”, “Demon Defeated”, etc.

Vrubel Mikhail Alexandrovich – The defeated demon 1902

Ge Nikolay Nikolaevich(1831-1894), one of the founders of the Association of Itinerants, landscape painter, portrait painter. Painting “Saul at the Sorceress of Endor”, “Secret Meeting”, “Peter I interrogates Tsarevich Alexei Petrovich in Peterhof”.

Kramskoy Ivan Nikolaevich(1837-1887), one of the founders of the Association of Itinerants. Paintings: “Unknown”, “Mina Moiseev”, “Forester”, “Contemplator”.

Nesterov Mikhail Vasilievich(1862-1942), portrait painter, master of monumental painting and lyrical landscape. The most famous paintings: “Victim of Friends”, “Connoisseur”, “Petitioners to the Emperor”, “The Hermit”.

Nesterov Mikhail Vasilievich – painting “Victim of Friends”

Repin Ilya Efimovich(1844-1930). Portraits of contemporaries (Stasov, Pisemsky, Tolstoy, Delvig). The paintings that became very famous were: “They Didn’t Expect”, “Barge Haulers on the Volga”, “Cossacks Write a Letter to the Turkish Sultan”, “Ivan the Terrible and His Son Ivan”.

Repin Ilya Efimovich – painting “Cossacks writing a letter to the Turkish Sultan”

Surikov Vasily Ivanovich(1848-1916), master of historical painting. Paintings: “Boyaryna Morozova”, “Morning of the Streltsy Execution”, “Suvorov’s Crossing of the Alps”, “Stepan Razin”.

Surikov Vasily Ivanovich – painting “The Morning of the Streltsy Execution”

Chagall Marc(1887-1985), painter and graphic artist. He created surreal works, often on folklore and biblical themes (“Over the City”), stained glass windows and illustrations.

Shishkin Ivan Ivanovich(1832-1898), landscape painter. Paintings: “Noon. In the vicinity of Moscow”, “Rye”, “Forest distances”, “Among the flat valley”, “Morning in a pine forest”.

Shishkin Ivan Ivanovich – “Ship Grove”

Foreign artists

Bosch (Bos van Aken) Hieronymus(c. 1460-1516), Dutch painter. The most famous: “The Temptation of St. Antonio”, triptychs “Hay Wagon” and “Garden of Delights”.

Botticelli Sandro (1445-1510), Italian artist, master of the Florentine school. Compositions on religious and biblical themes: “Allegory of Power”, “Return of Judith”, “Madonna and Child and Angels”. Mythological compositions: “Spring”, “Birth of Venus”.

Sandro Botticelli “Madonna and Child with Angels”

Bruegel Peter(between 1525 and 1535-1569), Dutch painter. Paintings: “The Battle of Maslenitsa and Lent”, “Mad Greta”, “Peasant Dance”.

Van Gogh Vincent(1853-1890), Dutch artist, representative of post-impressionism. Paintings: “Peasant Woman”, “Potato Eaters”, “The Hills of Montmartre”, “Landscape in Auvers after the Rain”.

Vincent van Gogh – “Landscape at Auvers after the rain”

Van Dyck Anthonys(1599-1641), Flemish painter. Ceremonial aristocratic and intimate portraits (“Charles I on the hunt”), religious and mythological compositions in the Baroque spirit.

Velasquez (Rodriguez de Silva Velazquez) Diego(1599-1660), Spanish artist. Paintings: “Breakfast”, “Breakfast of two young men”, “Christ in the house of Martha and Mary”. Portraits of a particularly royal house: Infanta Maria Teresa, Infanta Margaret.

Veronese Paolo(1528-1588), Italian Renaissance painter, representative of the Venetian school. He painted frescoes at the Villa Barbara Volpi in Maser. The most famous painting is “Marriage at Cana”.

Gauguin Paul(1848-1903), French artist, representative of post-impressionism. Paintings: “Two Tahitian women”, “Oh, are you jealous?”, “The King’s Wife”, Where do we come from? Who are we? Where we are going?".

Paul Gauguin – Tahitians-1891.

Goya Francisco(1746-1828), Spanish artist. He painted paintings on everyday and historical, mythological and religious subjects, portraits, and performed wall paintings (frescoes). Paintings: “Umbrella”, “Dishes Seller”, Series of etchings “Caprichos”.

Holbein Hans the Younger(1497 or 1498-1543), German painter and graphic artist, representative of the Renaissance. Works: “Dead Christ” and “Morette”.

Dali Salvador (1904-1989), spanish painter, representative of surrealism. The most famous phantasmagoric paintings are “The Flaming Giraffe” and “The Persistence of Memory.”

Dali Salvador – painting “Dream”

Daumier Honore(1808-1879), French graphic artist, painter, and sculptor, master of satirical drawing and lithography. Caricatures of the ruling elite and philistinism (“Transnonen Street”, series “Good Bourgeois”) became famous.

Durer Albrecht(1471-1528), German artist, representative of the German Renaissance. Paintings: “House by the Pond”, “View of Innsbruck”, “Portrait of Oswald Krel”.

Constable John(1776-1837), English landscape painter, representative of impressionism. Paintings; “Flatford Mill”, “Salisbury Cathedral from the Bishop’s Garden”, “Field of Corn”.

Leonardo da Vinci(1452-1519), Italian artist. In terms of the versatility of his talents, he surpassed all his predecessors and teachers. Paintings: " last supper”, “La Gioconda”, “Madonna Litta”, “Lady with an Ermine”, “Madonna in the Grotto” and many others.

Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) – “The Last Supper”

Masaccio(1401-1428), Italian painter, representative of the Florentine school, one of the founders of Renaissance art. He created the frescoes of the Brancacci Chapel in the Church of Santa Maria del Carmine in Florence.

Manet Edouard(1832-1883), French painter and graphic artist, founder of impressionism. Paintings: “Breakfast on the Grass”, Olympia”, “Bar at the Folies Bergere”.

Modigliani Amadeo(1840-1920), French artist of Italian origin. Paintings: “Pablo Picasso”, “Madame Pompadour”, “Lady with a Black Tie”, “Nude”, etc.

Monet Claude Oscar(1840-1926), founder French impressionism. Paintings: “Breakfast on the grass”, “Lilacs in the sun”, “Impression. Sunrise”, “Gare Saint-Lazare”.

Murillo Bartolome Esteban(1618-1682), Spanish artist, representative of Baroque painting. Paintings: “Holy Family with a Bird”, “Flight into Egypt”, Generation of Shepherds”, “Madonna and Child”, etc.

Picasso Pablo(1881-1973), one of the greatest artists of the 20th century. Paintings: “Harlequin”, “Portrait of a Wife”, “Jacqueline with a Black Scarf”, “Old Guitarist”, “The Blind Man’s Dinner”, “Girl on a Ball”, Three Musicians”, etc.

Poussin Nicolas(1594-1665), French painter, representative of classicism. Paintings: “Tancred and Erminia”, “Arcadian Shepherds”.

Rafael Santi(1483-1665), Italian artist, one of greatest masters Florentine-Roman High Renaissance. The theme of the Madonna occupies a central place in his work: “Madonna Conestabile”, “Madonna Solly”, “Madonna Terranova”, “Madonna in Greenery”, “Sistine Madonna”. and etc.

Raphael Santi - St. Jerome supporting two executed people

Rembrandt Harmens van Rijn(1606-1669), Dutch artist. Paintings; “The Anatomy of Doctor Tulpa”, “Danae”, “Night Watch”, “The Holy Family”, “The Girl at the Window”.

Rembrandt - “Danae”.

Renoir Pierre Augustin(1841-1919), French artist, representative of impressionism. Paintings: “Portrait of Alfred Sisley with his wife”, “Swimming in the Seine”, “Path in the Tall Grass”, “The End of Breakfast”, First Evening at the Opera”, Portrait of the Actress Samari.”

Saryan Martiros Sergeevich(1880-1972), Armenian painter. Paintings: “Armenia”, “Valley of Ararat”, “Autumn Still Life”.

Cezanne Paul(1839-1906), French artist, representative of post-impressionism. Paintings: “Girl at the Piano”, Road to Pontoise”, “Bouquet of Flowers in a Vase”, “Pierrot and Harlequin”, “Lady in Blue”, etc.

Zurbaran Francisco(1598-1664), Spanish painter. representative of the Seville school. His series of paintings from the life of St. Bonaventure.

Turner Joseph Melord William(1775-1851), English artist, representative of impressionism, master of romantic landscape. His canvases reflect mythological and historical subjects (“Hannibal crossing the Alps in a snowstorm”, “Ulysses and Polyphemus”). Paintings: “Evening Star”, “Rain, Steam and Speed”, “Mole and Calais”.

Tintoretto Jacopo(1518-1594), Italian artist, representative of the Venetian school. Known for his large paired compositions “The Last Supper”, the painting “The Miracle of St. Mark” brought popularity. In the cycle of biblical scenes, the most significant paintings are: “The Creation of Animals”, “The Creation of Adam and Eve”, Solomon and the Queen of Sheba”, etc.

Titian Vecellio(c. 1476/77 or 1489/90 - 1576), Italian artist, master of the Venetian school of the Renaissance. Paintings: “Flora”, “Earthly and Heavenly Love”, “Madonna with Cherries”, “Mourning of Christ”, “The Rape of Europa”.

Toulouse-Lautrec Henri Marie Raymond de(1864-1901), French artist, representative of post-impressionism. Paintings: “Countess Toulouse-Lautrec at breakfast in Malrome”, “Laundress”, “In a cafe”, Dance at the Moulin Rouge”, etc.

Hals Franz(1581 or 85-1666), Dutch artist, the greatest reformer of Jewish portraiture. Paintings: “Singing boy-flutist”, “Children with a mug”, “Gypsy”, “Smiling gentleman”, “Cheerful drinking companion”.

El Greco Domenico(1541-1614), Spanish artist of Greek origin.

Ingres Jean Auguste Dominique(1780-1867), French artist, one of the best portrait painters of the 19th century, supporter of the traditions of classicism.

The largest painters, sculptors, graphic artists around the world updated: February 18, 2017 by: website

Famous artists, sculptors, graphic artists

Aivazovsky Ivan Konstantinovich(1817–1900) - Russian painter, master seascape(“The Ninth Wave”, “Black Sea”).

Borovikovsky Vladimir Lukich(1757–1825) - Russian and Ukrainian portrait artist, sentimentalist (portraits of M. I. Lopukhina, A. B. Kurakin).

Bosch (Bos van Aken) Hieronymus (Hieronymous)(c. 1460–1516) - Dutch painter, one of the largest masters of the Northern Renaissance.

Botticelli Sandro (Alessandro di Mariano di Vani Filipepi)(1445–1510) - the greatest Italian painter of the Early Renaissance.

Bruegel the Elder Pieter (“The Peasant”)(c. 1525–1569) - Flemish painter and graphic artist, master of landscape and genre scenes.

Bryullov Karl Pavlovich(1799–1852) - Russian painter, draftsman, master of intensely dramatic canvases (“The Last Day of Pompeii”) and ceremonial portraits (“Horsewoman”).

Van Gogh Vincent(1853–1890) - Dutch painter, representative of post-impressionism. His paintings are characterized by color contrasts and impetuous rhythm. Created tragic images in a painfully intense, extremely expressive manner, built on contrasts of color, impetuous rhythm, on the free dynamics of impasto strokes (“Night Cafe”, “Landscape in Auvers after the Rain”).

Van Dyck Antonis (1599–1641) - Flemish painter, virtuoso of painting, student of Rubens. His works are marked by noble spirituality (“Self-Portrait”).

Wang Eyck Ian(c. 1385 or 1390–1441) - Flemish painter of the Early Renaissance, master of portraiture, author of more than 100 compositions on religious subjects, one of the first artists to master the technique of painting with oil paints.

Vasnetsov Viktor Mikhailovich(1848–1926) - Russian Itinerant artist. He created canvases on the themes of Russian epics and fairy tales (“Alyonushka”, “Three Heroes”).

Watteau Antoine(1684–1721) - French artist, master of genre painting.

Velasquez Diego (Velasquez Rodriguez de Silva)(1599–1660) - Spanish artist. Velazquez's canvases ("Breakfast", "Surrender of Breda") are distinguished by a sense of harmony, subtlety and richness of color.

Venetsianov Alexey Gavrilovich(1780–1847) - Russian painter. Most of his works are on themes of peasant life, written from life.

Vereshchagin Vasily Vasilievich(1842–1904) - Russian battle painter. In his works he showed the horrors of war (“Apotheosis of War”). Killed in the explosion of the battleship Petropavlovsk in Port Arthur.

Wermeer of Delft Jan(1632–1675) - Dutch painter, distinguished by his poetic perception of everyday life (“Girl Reading a Letter”).

Veronese (Cagliari) Paolo(1528–1588) - Italian Renaissance painter. The paintings he created are distinguished by their festiveness and sophistication.

Vrubel Mikhail Alexandrovich(1856–1910) - Russian artist of the Silver Age. He gravitated toward philosophical generality, tragedy, and symbolic interpretation of the plot (“Princess of Dreams,” “Demon”).

Vuchetich Evgeniy Viktorovich(1908–1974) - Russian Soviet sculptor(figure of the Motherland on Mamayev Kurgan in Volgograd).

Ge Nikolay Nikolaevich(1831–1894) - famous Russian painter, master of portraits, historical and religious paintings (“The Last Supper”, “Peter I interrogates Tsarevich Alexei Petrovich in Peterhof”, “What is truth?”).

Gainsborough Thomas(1727–1788) - English painter, graphic artist, portraitist and landscape painter.

Gauguin Eugene Henri Paul(1848–1903) - French painter, sculptor, ceramicist and graphic artist. Along with Cezanne and Van Gogh, he is considered the largest representative of post-impressionism.

Goya Francisco José de(1746–1828) - Spanish painter and graphic artist, a bold innovator of form. Among his works are frescoes, paintings (“Maja Nude”), and a series of engravings (“Caprichos”).

Greco (El Greco)(Domenikos Theotokopoulos) (1541–1614 ) - Spanish painter of Greek origin, whose works are characterized by mystical exaltation (“Portrait of an Inquisitor”).

David Jacques Louis(1748–1825) - French painter, supporter classical school painting (“Oath of the Horatii”).

Dali Salvador(1904–1989) - Spanish artist, one of the most prominent representatives of surrealism. In his paintings he gave visible authenticity to unnatural situations and combinations of objects.

Degas Edgar ( 1834–1917) - French impressionist artist, pastel master (“Blue Dancers”).

Delacroix Eugene ( 1798–1863) - French painter and graphic artist, head of French romanticism (“Freedom leading the people”).

Giorgione(1477–1510) - Italian painter, one of the founders of High Renaissance art (“Sleeping Venus”, “Judith”).

Giotto di Bondone(1266–1337) - Italian artist, founder of modern painting (“Lamentation of Christ”).

Donatello (Donato di Niccolo di Betto Bardi) ( 1386–1466) - Italian sculptor, one of the “fathers” of the Renaissance.

Durer Albrecht(1471–1528) - German painter and graphic artist of the Renaissance, art theorist (self-portraits, Madonna and Child, engravings).

Kandinsky Vasily Vasilievich(1866–1944) - Russian painter and graphic artist, avant-garde artist, one of the founders of abstract art.

Canova Antonio(1757–1822) - Italian sculptor, the most significant representative of classicism in European sculpture.

Caravaggio Michelangelo yes (Michelangelo Merisi Caravaggio)(1571–1610) - Italian artist, reformer of European painting of the 17th century, one of the greatest masters of the Baroque.

Kiprensky Orest Adamovich(1782–1836) - Russian painter and draftsman, representative of romanticism (portraits of A. S. Pushkin).

Klodt Petr Karlovich(1805–1867) - Russian sculptor, representative of classicism, animal painter (horses on the Anichkov Bridge in St. Petersburg).

Korovin Konstantin Alekseevich(1861–1939) - Russian painter and theater artist, a subtle master of plein air painting, close to impressionism.

Kramskoy Ivan Nikolaevich(1837–1887) - Russian painter, wanderer, teacher of I. E. Repin (“May Night”). Master psychological portrait, revealing complex mental movements (“Stranger”).

Cranach Lucas the Elder(1472–1553) - German painter and graphic artist, who combined artistic principles Renaissance with Gothic tradition, brilliant portrait painter.

Kuindzhi Arkhip Ivanovich(1841–1910) - Russian landscape painter, Wanderer. Kuindzhi’s works demonstrate decorative sonority of color and lighting effects that are close to life to the point of illusion (“Night on the Dnieper”).

Larionov Mikhail Fedorovich(1881–1964) - Russian painter, avant-garde artist, abstractionist, creator of the so-called Rayonism.

Levitan Isaac Ilyich(1860–1900) - Russian Itinerant painter, landscape painter, creator of the “mood landscape”, revealing the subtle nuances of the states of nature (“Above Eternal Peace”).

Levitsky Dmitry Grigorievich(1735–1822) - Russian portrait painter of the 18th century, master of ceremonial portraits.

Leonardo da Vinci(1452–1519) - Italian painter, sculptor, architect and scientist. He embodied the ideal of female beauty in the world famous painting “La Gioconda” (“Mona Lisa”).

Lysippos(IV century BC) - ancient Greek sculptor, court artist of Alexander the Great.

Masaccio (Tommaso di Giovanni di Simone Cassai)(1401–1428) - Italian painter, in his works he sought to embody the idea of ​​human perfection.

Malevich Kazimir Severinovich(1878–1935) - Russian abstract artist (“Black Square”), founder of Suprematism.

Manet Edouard(1832–1883) - French artist, one of the brightest representatives of impressionism. His works are distinguished by freshness and acute perception of reality (“Concert in the Tuileries”).

Matisse Henri(1869–1954) - French painter, graphic artist, who established the ornamental style in stained glass, engravings, lithographs, founder of Fauvism.

Michelangelo Buonarroti(1475–1564) - Italian painter, sculptor and architect (“David”, painting of the Sistine Chapel in Rome).

Myron of Eleuther(V century BC) - Greek sculptor of the era that immediately preceded the highest flowering of Greek art (late VI - early V century). Myron's most famous work is “Discobolus”.

Modigliani Amedeo(1884–1920) - Italian painter. Modigliani's works are characterized by musical sophistication of silhouette and color, and laconic composition.

Monet Oscar Claude(1840–1926) - French painter, one of the founders of impressionism.

Munch Edvard(1863–1944) - Norwegian painter and graphic artist, one of the founders of expressionism (“The Scream”).

Mukhina Vera Ignatievna(1889–1953) - Soviet sculptor-monumentalist (“Worker and Collective Farm Woman”).

Perov Vasily Grigorievich (Kriedener)(1834–1882) - Russian painter, one of the founding members of the “Association of Traveling Art Exhibitions” (“Troika”, “Portrait of F. M. Dostoevsky”, “Hunters at a Rest”).

Petrov-Vodkin Kuzma Sergeevich(1878–1939) - Russian Soviet painter (“The Bathing of the Red Horse”), symbolist, romantic.

Picasso Pablo Ruiz(1881–1973) - French artist, worked in several directions - cubism, realism, etc. Created works full of pain and protest (“Guernica”), author of the famous “Dove of Peace.”

Pirosmani Niko(1862–1918) - Georgian primitivist artist. He painted group portraits and signs that acutely convey the feeling of fullness and joy of life.

Praxiteles(IV century BC) - ancient Greek sculptor, born in Athens ca. 390 BC e. Author of the famous compositions “Hermes with the baby Dionysus”, “Apollo killing the lizard”. Most of Praxiteles' works are known from Roman copies or from descriptions by ancient authors.

Poussin Nicolas(1594–1665) - French painter, representative of the school of classicism (“Landscape with Polyphemus”).

Rafael Santi(1483–1520) - Italian painter and architect, whose paintings are distinguished by classical clarity and majestic spirituality. He glorified the earthly existence of man, the harmony of his mental and physical powers (“Sistine Madonna”).

Reynolds Joshua(1723–1792) - English painter and art theorist. A masterly portrait painter ("J. O. Heathfield"), he also wrote on historical and mythological themes.

Rembrandt Harmens van Rijn(1606–1669) - Dutch painter, draftsman, etcher. He painted scenes and portraits that were complex in their psychological structure (“Night Watch”, “Danae”).

Renoir Auguste(1841–1919) - French painter, graphic artist and sculptor, close to the Impressionists. He sang the sensual beauty and joy of being.

Repin Ilya Efimovich(1844–1930) - Russian and Ukrainian painter. He revealed the spiritual beauty of the people, their love of freedom (“Cossacks write a letter to the Turkish Sultan”, “Barge Haulers on the Volga”, “They Didn’t Wait”).

Roerich Nikolai Konstantinovich(1874–1947) - Russian artist, since the 1920s he lived in India, the philosophy of which had a huge influence on his work.

Rodin Auguste(1840–1917) - French sculptor, innovator of form (“The Thinker”, “Citizens of Calais”).

Rokotov Fedor Stepanovich(1735–1808) - an outstanding Russian painter. Among the artist's works are delicate, poetic portraits, imbued with an awareness of the spiritual and physical beauty of man.

Rubens Peter Paul(1577–1640) - Flemish painter. His landscapes are imbued with a sense of powerful natural forces. Scenes peasant life(“Return of the Reapers”) are imbued with a democratic spirit.

Rublev Andrey(c. 1360-c. 1430) - great Russian painter, icon painter, the largest master of the Moscow school of painting. Rublev’s works are imbued with deep humanity and sublime spirituality (“Trinity”, paintings of many cathedrals, icons).

Savrasov Alexey Kondratievich(1830–1897) - Russian landscape painter, Wanderer. He conveyed the poetic beauty and significance of everyday motifs (“The Rooks Have Arrived”).

Saryan Martiros Sergeevich(1880–1972) - Armenian artist. A master of life-affirming, emotional landscapes, bright and decoratively generalized in style (“Valley of Ararat”, “Armenia”), sharp psychological portraits and still lifes that are festive in color.

Cezanne Paul(1839–1906) - French painter, post-impressionist (“Banks of the Marne”, “Peaches and Pears”).

Serov Valentin Alexandrovich(1865–1911) - Russian painter and graphic artist, Wanderer. Early works(“Girl with Peaches”) are distinguished by their freshness and richness of color.

Snyders France(1579–1657) - Flemish painter, master of still lifes and animal compositions in the Baroque style (“Cockfighting”, “Fruit Seller”).

Surikov Vasily Ivanovich(1848–1916) - Russian Itinerant artist, many canvases are dedicated to turning points in Russian history (“Boyarina Morozova”, etc.). Master of Portrait.

Tintoretto (Robusti) Jacopo(1518–1594) - Italian painter, one of the greatest painters of the Venetian school of the late Renaissance.

Titian (Titian Vecellio)(1476–1576) - Italian painter, head of the Venetian school. His works are distinguished by their cheerfulness, multifaceted perception of life (“Venus and Adonis”, “Danae”), and in more later works- intense drama.

Thorvaldsen Bertel(1768–1844) - Danish sculptor, representative of classicism. Thorvaldsen's sculptures are characterized by plastic completeness, restraint and idealization of images (“Jason”).

Tropinin Vasily Andreevich(1776–1857) - Russian painter, master of romantic portraiture.

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec(1864–1901) - French graphic artist and painter, post-impressionist.

Phidias(V century BC) - ancient Greek sculptor of the high classic period. The work of Phidias is considered one of the highest achievements of ancient art (statues of Athena, Olympian Zeus).

Hokusai Katsushika(1760–1849) - Japanese painter and draftsman, master of color woodcuts.

Cellini Benvenuto(1500–1571) - Italian sculptor, architect and writer. One of the most famous representatives of mannerism.

Chagall Marc(1887–1985) - French artist, follower of surrealism. Most of his images are inspired by Russian and Jewish folk motifs.

Shishkin Ivan Ivanovich(1832–1898), Russian painter, one of the greatest masters of realistic landscape painting. Academician (1865), professor (1873), head of the landscape workshop (1894–1895) of the Academy of Arts. Founding member of the Association of Traveling Art Exhibitions.

Escher Maurice Cornelis(1898–1972) - Dutch graphic artist. He is best known for his conceptual lithographs, wood and metal engravings, in which he masterfully explored the plastic aspects of the concepts of infinity and symmetry, as well as the peculiarities of the psychological perception of complex three-dimensional objects.

Yaroshenko Nikolay Alexandrovich(1846–1898) - Russian Itinerant painter. Portraits, landscapes, genre scenes (“Stoker”, “Old and Young”) are distinguished by their dramatic nature.