The season of summer and golden-autumn walks is coming to an end; it's time for blankets and tea. Well, not really. It's time to actively visit exhibitions, museums and other cozy spaces.
No one has canceled viruses, so in crowded places wash your hands more often and moisturize the lining of your nose. That way you'll be able to see all the most interesting things.
Given my love of little-known and underground spaces, I'll start with an exhibition at the Tretyakov Gallery. But that makes sense, because Filipp Malyavin is not the most popular painter, but one of the original ones.
The exhibition is held in Lavrushinsky Lane, but not in the main building — in the engineering wing. It occupies two floors.
For some reason the organizers advise starting on the third floor and then continuing on the second, which I did, but I recommend you don't follow that)
The second floor is taken up by the fairly traditional paintings of Abram Arkhipov. Yes, the exhibition "Acolytes of Red" brings together two painters. But perhaps you'll better understand the difference in their schools by first looking at Arkhipov's small-scale classics on the second floor, and then moving to Malyavin's half-canvas strokes located a floor above.
Of course, such bright, broad and bold painting displeased the teachers of the Academy of Arts. But Repin saved many great artists by supporting their bold experiments. So it was with Filipp Malyavin. Perhaps that's why one of Repin's best portraits is precisely a Malyavin one, and it is in the exhibition.
By the way, Malyavin painted many of his colleagues. These portraits often appear at various exhibitions, and now they are all shown together as a single selection.
But it's time to move on to the 'babas.' That word appears more often than any other in the titles of Malyavin's paintings. These large, strong and beautiful women surely inspired the artist to create his own direction in painting. Against the background of the Peredvizhniki (the Wanderers), who showed the gaunt faces of ordinary people dressed in old rags, the babas in red somehow don't look like realism. And yet it is precisely realism. To put on a red sarafan with a yellow blouse for a celebration and go out for a walk with a grin from ear to ear! That is both saving and inevitable for people at all times!
