Boris Mikhailovich Kustodiyev as an artist highly appreciated the image of Svyatorussky provincial Russia. Merchants, peasants, merchants and ordinary people often became the main characters and heroes of his works. This diversity, which existed in the society of the Russian State at that time, was reflected in the diversity of the painting images and folk characters created by the painter. The people of provincial Russia are many-sided, interesting, and difficult to translate. B. M. Kustodiev embodies small Russian villages and villages in his works. Kustodiyev depicts folk festivals, holidays, portraits of the merchants. The author does all this with particular ease, brilliance of colors, an abundance of all sorts of colors, creating similar to cheap popular prints and paintings. The artist is attracted by the atmosphere and fun of fairs, folk festivals, folk festivals.
The fair for Kustodiev was a separate, very distinctive, polysyllabic way. Similar to the multi-color canvas, which embodied the idea of noisy national fun and open emotion of the holiday, you can consider the canvas “Walking on the Volga River” written in 1909. The picture can be found in the State Russian Museum. The image was created by Kustodiyev oil paints, but at the same time filled with a feeling of “moving” paints, reminding work with the effect of mixed media, using a variety of artistic materials.
The painting depicts a folk festival on the river bank. The work has a multi-faceted composition. The author seems to be drawing an image from an elevated position, from a high point of view. In the foreground of the picture are depicted directly the vacationers themselves of different positions and status. Here and the ladies in hats, decorated with flowers and ribbons. The bright bright image of the ladies is accompanied by images of dapper young people dressed up in the latest fashion. Young ladies are light, in their hands are airy folded snow-white umbrellas.
One of the men is depicted with a cane and a gold chain from a watch. Everything in his image suggests that he is handsome and a dandy. Around a crowd of simple people, women and men, dressed to match the holiday. Guys in bright crimson-scarlet shirts, and women – in headscarves of white and colorful elegant dresses. Everything was mixed up, all the colors and estates became a single, multi-colored holiday. The whole world around us turned into a noisy fair of triumph, where the hysterical sounds of a street orchestra drown in conversations and laughter of a walking crowd, shouts of merchants inviting gay people to themselves.
The medium plan of the picture space fills a beautiful view of the Volga and a bright green landscape against the evening sky and a gradually fading summer day. Superbly written Kustodiev Russian birch – a great symbol. Light delicate, green, rich colors, bright, fluffy greens, exactly complex embroidery, soft, warm, dear. And all this against the background of a blue, transparent Volga, the mighty Russian river. The most distant plan draws in front of us the opposite shore, and the wonderful cathedral, surrounded by beautiful nature, is drowning in greenery, the twilight of the evening, multi-colored flashes of the evening sky: blue-pink, pinkish-pale, etc.
The painting “Walking on the Volga” with a complex composition in several levels, plans. But all this multi-faceted action looks like a single work, which is characterized by harmony of details, color, and plot images. The wide Russian soul is revealed especially during such open festivals and popular expanses. Strong is the spirit of the people, their joy and craving for life, for life over the edge, for life avidly, for life to the full power.
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