Yury Vasiliev.
Landscapes and Improvisations.
It is a pleasure to drive my car along the local highways of western europe. Espesciale at the Indian summer and early automn’s times. You can see a lot of haystacks in the Polish meadows.The German farming fields being smoothly tilled and ploughed for the future fallow crops. The scarlet foliage, resembling Van-gohe, glowing up hills the horizon the endless southern France’s lines of vine-yards stretching far ahead. The impressions bright Kaleidoscope claims to stay forever in every traveller’s memory, especially for muses servant – the panoramic change of scees and meetings, being the worthless creative lugguage.
The painter Yury Vasiliev, knows it by his own expirience. He had covered far and wide along the russian land, admiring the grandour of Caucasus mountain ranges, inhaling the hailing air of Crimean sea-coast, stayng as an honorable guest of Middle Asia, detached in sand, rural “Edem”. Perestroika’s process simplifying the visas formaities and Yury had opend his own way inside the neiborhood coutries.
Haiving loaded his reliable “Nissan” –car with paints, card-board and brushes, every summer he launches his expedition to the “European plain-air” to paint scetches. First Finland and Norway realized themselves in varying degrees of now inaccessible, simply cyclopical – shape of beaty. Indeed it was the resl beaty of Hyperborean lands that leaves nobody inspired by indeferent. Gradually the vast expended landscape painting – cicle had been shaped – as some kind of concluding session of the decades long travels towards the lakes and fjords of Scandinavia. This lyrical account includes the water-colors, called “The Nothern sea-shore”, “Norway. After the rain”, “The Wind beyong Fjords”, “The Polar Night”.
The vast inaccesible spands being depicted in the compositions, called “The Erly Snow”, “Lafontain’s Semtember”, “The rocky Fjord’s Sea-shores”. Confronted merely un expectedly, as if by magic wand’s charm after several light brush strokes, the outlines of rocky shorelines, wooden structures, the streaming patches of bays and fjords, mysterios countoirs of bluishtinted mountains. Along the cold sky background, the poweful mountain ranges, look like tuning up to the severe motiff of infinity,- including and merely confronted with the ancient life-long used sound of the Nothern eskimo dwellers: both the sledges squeak, laikas barking and motor boats engine sound. In order to trap down the color gradations of granite blocks, the sparking waters of lakes and bays, the mosaic range range of fisherman’s villages and rain-deer’s settlements.
During the remote-aged times, I.E. Repin, sharing his past painters expirience, tutored the young artists, saying: “While painting the model sketches for picture – he said – I used to study the shape, color and light – it serves me as background, but while painting the picture, I need used to use the cketch – it is just thrown away”. Since that time, many has been changed in the fine art’s laws, jast few of us, used to paint the huge jenre canvases, but the natural scetch, on the contrery had gained itself in price. It has been chanched and converted from the background to the very “building” I mean the totally completed artistic masterpiece.
You can see this fact confirmation at yury Vasiliev’s genuine works, performed masterfully, and at the same time, with the feeling of freshness, lightness, unexpectedly expromt touch. Having caught the right feeling touch, painter cultivated with a view to alertness, he would work like mad, in order to spend up all his inspiration with maximum output. It was the routine artist social longing, whether, the painter was occupied in seetches painting in nothern countres, or being bound to warmer European countres.
As the case may be, the splendour and variety of scennery collisions of varios Kinds, the South always being the main attraction of colorist – painters. “The Spanish mountains Mist”, “Provaince Vineyards”, “Avignon’s street” all these pictures were filled with virtouse fulfilled pastel, attractive, sophisticated and lively resolution of painter’s eterual problem of intense tints, theharmony between tunes and semi-tunes, the depth and measure of impinted space. The plain-aire fild work, had developed the visual memory, a lmost enganged the painter to be precise in the choice of motive and mood. The spesial “lookout” for a painter – was the fragile and complex Juxtaposition moments in nature life: spring? Automn, the winter start. The whole wave of social longings, being motivated at the viewer’s over the lanscapes of “Alp’s town”, “Saint –Hippolytes dus-For”, “Maritime city”. Besides the sofisticated, proffessional, exuberance, being the vital point for the painter, the most attractive longing for travel, for country comprehension, for deeper and deeper social expanding horizons of your own life. Besides the filed seetches, the painter was top interested on longing to fantasy-rictures, to exotic decorations, due to the fact.
Y. Vasiliev himself had the touches of shaman (woo-doo-charms) had appeared behind his works.
The cultural heriage of Saami, Nenets, Aleutes and other Extreme Nothern tribal ethnic minorities, was interwoven with variiety of legends and sagas. Side by side with so called “High-Tech” civilization, it had preserved the rilet glamor show-up, being fixed andbricked inside the collections of phetishes, idols, ammulates, as wellas in dances, simulating the habits of birds and beasts.
Nothing but the autentic word had attraced the saint-Petersburg artist’s attantion with deeper mysteries, ruthmes and multi-colored variety. The central part of the decorative suite, has been consecrated to the sorcerers bewitching the low spirits, and claimed to be central part of composition “Masquarade” and “Crane’s Dance”. Theancient magic witchcraft energy, resembles the explosion, blouing-up the picture limits, expanding outwards and infecting the wiewer with its own energy.
The tundra aboriginees ethnic ritual dances interest, being the organic motivation to the birth of thenew carnival serie – fantasy on the scene of street musicians theme. This cicle sheets were filed with figures of trumpet – blowers, bag-pipers, violonists, guitar-players – the wanderiny brood of skillful congregation capable for sorcery and enjoyment of simple audience, with the sounds of jigga, polka or chardash. The picture plain surface and varietly of figures depicted, had allowed the artist to ignore janre event narration, and to out line the siluette or texture – the main hero – the wanderiny menestrel, seeming smart and cool parodist, ladies heart-breaker. To emphasize the decorative effect in sheets of serie, called, “Gitar player”, “Street musician”, Bag-pipers”.
The variety the different tecnique devices, being merget together. Some of them, catch the right eue at once, as if teasing you with performance simplictly;- others, seeming to develope though pigments, layers, but still stay the intrigung enigma.
Jast recently Yury Vasiliev has been producing the painting periphrases to the past famous painters masterpices – Carravaggio and Brullov.
That was the routine practice in painters life. Van-gohe had used the designs and pictures of his contemporsries as the inspiration source, copying intrproting them. Pablo Picasso used them just for provocative reasons, plucking offense and monkeying the Velaskez, Angre, Courboux’s works.
Creating his periphrases “Vachanalia”, Italian girls”, “Sleeping kinds” or “Romeo and Julia”, Yury vasiliev, seems to disclose the originals genuine potential.
He paints his copies with with acrilic paints, wich werealas, lacking durinr Barroque and Romantisism Age, claming by thise device the limitless possibilities of modern coloristic style. His tests resembling, the regulation scale, used by musicains, who used to employ the same style, while performing the “jazz-session-jam” of some classical opus of Vivaldi, or computer arrangement Bach’s fuga.
The combination of excatly – made details with decoratively generalzed whole shape – make these works irresistable.
The painter lives in two parallel worlds – both in our reality and in special poetic world, being built inside his imagination.
Obviously that there is a special magic alloy, possessing both: proffession skill and the healthy character features, suchas – stability, love to labor, sense of humor and self – irony sense. The proffessional skill – is vital question for the fine arts. It is supposed to be accumulated in course of time. Regretfully that skill, being aquired during Academical study years, is gradually vanishing and descreasing without constant practice and drilt. It grows sick and finally falls into decay, loosing creativity and transforming into self-plagiat.
During confidential talks, Yury’s father, the famous painter A.I. Vasiliev, had warned his son against the banal mistakes, from making a painting show or skill-parading in scetch. Also he taught him to make destinetion between equally harmful for fineart ways, the mainstream lines, as well as by-pass, moor and marshland ways. In order to find hise own way one has to listen to his soul’s movements, and understand the motivation of the gift, being granted to him, and stay and be himself.
The father also told him, that real artist, never invents the beaty, but discovers, finds it in life, makes them flesh in his works, and visible for many.
That is the main drive and reson of people’s love and devotion to true fine art, who find here the support to their daily emotions and thoughts.
After having lived more than 50 years, Yury Vasiliev, had convinced on his own expirience the truth of father convents. During the last decades, under disguise of the slogan “The artist – is people’s property” the state – owned, dispersonified way of creative work’s payment hasbeen claimed profitable for our state, while peoplewere consuming the painters, graphiks, sculptors works on official displays, jaston the visual level apprehension. The new economical environment had liberated the painters from the primitive ideology himeras, but as the same time had demainded the artifact desined for just these people and daily life. The respect towards the possible counsumers tastes – that doesn’t maen the total rejection of master-hood createriass, and Yury Vasiliev, who got used to hard work, had stoycally preserved the status – quoposition. Being in the open air, or in his study-room, at home or abroad, he is boiling with energy and various tecnical designs, therefore every his new work, let it be – landscape, portrait, still-life or fantastic outlay – all demonstrate brightness, decour, - enjoying both the heart and eye.
N.N. Gromoff, fine art proffesor.