“RG” offers to remember the most famous paintings of Ilya Glazunov in the birthday of the artist.
the Graduation work of students of the Institute of painting, sculpture and architecture named after I. E. Repin Ilya Glazunov was terrified of teachers. Instead of chanting the exploits of the Soviet people-the winner, the artist decided to portray the retreat of the red Army. In the end, the final work had to be replaced. However, Glazunov did not abandon the idea to show the tragedy that preceded the great Victory. The painting “Roads of war” presented in 1964 at the exhibition at the Manezh, which after 5 days was closed as contrary to Soviet ideology. In 1985, Glazunov created author’s copy disappeared after the closing of the exposition.
In the West, written in 1978, the painting was called “painting that will never see Russian”: too bold she was. If on stage before the audience played a tragic theatrical performance called “the twentieth century”: the Russian revolution, the rise of the avant-garde and a departure from the traditions of classical culture, the Great Patriotic war, nuclear bomb tests, – in short, everything that, in the opinion of the master, was the cause of the chaos in the modern world.
In this painting, dedicated to the 1000th anniversary of the baptism of Rus, Ilya Glazunov has depicted the history of the Fatherland. In the artistic chronicle of Russia, he captured the face of the people: public figures, repressed, generals, saints, figures of science and art. Among the latter, of course, present Fyodor Dostoyevsky, to work which addressed more than once by the artist.
the Painting continues reflections of Ilya Glazunov on the fate of Russia. The experiment, according to him, becomes the entire twentieth century: from revolution and establishing a Communist dictatorship before the restructuring, and the widespread democratic slogans. The center of the composition – the red five-pointed star, devil’s symbol, which imprisoned Lenin, Stalin, Trotsky. Soviet reality in flames, while above Imperial Russia – a clear sky.
the Idea of this modern picture, first presented in 2010 at the exhibition in the Manege, Ilya Glazunov harbored more than one year. The canvas echoes the artist to the events of the late 1920’s-early 1930-ies, which turned into a tragedy for the country. In the painting the viewer sees above the entrance to the Church is a portrait of Stalin, icons burned in a huge bonfire, the villagers rounded up into boxcars to send them to the Urals, Siberia, and Central Asia.
