The artist is Ivanov
Victor Ivanov – Soviet and Russian painter and teacher, academician, People’s Artist of the USSR and laureate of a number of state prizes. The source of inspiration for Viktor Ivanov has always been his historical homeland – Ryazan land.
“The meaning of my work,” says Viktor Ivanovich, “not in defending the personal freedom that has now been declared priority over everything and everything, but to express the spiritual and moral aspirations of the people. And without this, art is a trifle. I only portray what I know well. I am looking for positive people in people. Although many of my paintings about a difficult, exhausting peasant life. But look what a person is born in these conditions – strong, beautiful, kind. I found this human ideal on Ryazan land “. Through all the artist’s work, the image of a simple Russian person passes, a collective image of a modern Russian peasant woman.
Viktor Ivanov, referring to the topic of the post -war village, writes the picture “Family. 1945 “. Giving himself a word to draw only what touches the heart, what excites the soul, the artist writes a strict and concise image. There is no family idyll here, on the faces of the family gathered at the meal, lies a gloomy shadow. Their faces do not express the joy of returning to peaceful life, gleeing about victory. The tired, heavy views of the family members seemed to be directed deep into themselves, into difficult memories of recent years. The volitional profile of the mother of the family is a pale mask of sorrow. The father of the family is the veteran linked by the early wrinkles, he looks over the head of his own son, directing his eyes into the past. And even children here remain immobility and solemn silence.
E.B. Mogilevsky, c.M. Akhunov. Materials for audio guide at the exhibition “Memory” for the IZI platform.Travel. 2020
In post -war Soviet times, the family was called to public service with a “big picture”. In the late 1959-early 1960s, the artists of the “harsh style” and the currents close to it intended to break through the wall of the official-oriented viewer-state, and reach the person. Thematically their work corresponded to the state order: revolution, war, workdays of contemporaries. But the presentation of these events in the mirror of private, family stories should have awakened personal memory, personal experiences of the viewer. So, the Great Patriotic War in Soviet art is a long series of wires, expectations, meetings and mourning; Great remote construction sites – the place of origin of relationships, the formation of young families and their testing for strength. The ritual moments of family life become metaphors of something more, refer to being. Rural family meals – dialogue between generations, involvement in the past and plans for the future, harvesting in the family garden – the memory of ancestors, the continuity of generations, a transparently veiled connection to a long row of biblical archetypes. Lyubov Shakirova. Family album of the Russian Museum // Portrait of Family. SPb, 2014. WITH. 14.
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The name of Viktor Ivanov is associated with the idea of the images of significant, courageous, wise, beautiful. It is these features that embody in themselves "Peasant Madonna", The family gathered at the table after a military light. She, all that had taken out, waited, waited for her husband from the front, at the head of the table, the rank of village meal. In such a relief of the composition of the picture, the strictness of silhouettes there is a certain solemnity. In an angular, like a ruble figure, harsh forms – tension. The largest master of Russian painting Pavel Korin wrote: "Viktor Ivanov talented with his concise and at the same time smart and simple vision, with a powerful color tone, coloring, sometimes dramatic in nature".
