Exhibition 'Our Art — Our History'

About exhibition

The exhibition presents paintings that reveal the characteristics and beauty of various forms and genres of visual art. Familiarity with the paintings offers an opportunity to appreciate the diversity of Soviet artists' artistic explorations and the breadth of the era's emotional expression. Historical paintings reflect the main ideas of Socialist Realism — an artistic movement that dominated the USSR from the 1930s to the 1980s and promoted socialist ideals and new social relations in an accessible, realistic form. In postwar painting, a striking phenomenon was the work of the artists of the 1960s, who developed a new direction — the 'severe style', characterized by monumental composition, generalized forms, and large areas of color. The paintings prominently feature folk motifs and ethnic diversity. Russian decorative and applied arts are represented by works from Gzhel, Dymkovo, Khokhloma, Filimonovo, Zhostovo, and Mstera. Each historical era is characterized by a common set of philosophical, political, religious, and aesthetic frameworks.