Thibaud Josset, editor-in-chief of the magazine "Universe of the Arts", has written an article on Moscow artist Nikolai Kuzmin.

Paintings:
Autumn, O/C, 80 x 80 cm (31.5 x 31.5 inches), 2022
Day in February in Kolomenskoye, O/C, 100 x 110 cm (39.4 x 43.3 inches), 1992 (private collection)
Legends of old, O/C, 60 x 52 cm (23.6 x 20.5 inches), 2013
«On the road to Murom stood three pine trees...». The light fields and the pine trees. Acrylic, oil on paper, 103 x 120 cm (40.6 x 47.2 inches), 2002

NIKOLAI KUZMIN, "Light modeler"

Back in France for a brief winter tour based around Art Capital 2024, Nikolai Kuzmin is undoubtedly one of the greatest Russian painters of his generation and arguably the greatest still active. For those who wish to affirm their love for beautiful Figuration, for the poetic language of painting and the fine craft, coming face to face with one of his canvases is an essential life experience. A revelation along a journey where each step is a gift.

Nikolai Kuzmin was born in 1938 in the Nizhny Novgorod region, in the heart of those immense European expanses crossed by the sovereign Volga and its tributaries. There, in the expanse of the seemingly unlimited space beneath the celestial mass, imagination has all the room it needs to wander among the almighty elements. The banks of the great river, tributaries and lakes, or the rugged cliffs and the gentle green plains - everything can, under the ever-changing lights at the extremes of the seasons and the hours, lead to the most invigorating humility that the mind is capable of: that of the total contemplation, through both body and intellect, of the Real.

Through the body, because here there is no possibility of escaping the senses; nature is too complete. Through the intellect, because here existence calls you with its elusive immateriality; man can never escape himself. Is this a secret of what we like to call, for lack of a better term, the Russian soul? This way of being entirely oneself, an individual animated in the literal sense, in touch with the fate of the earth, of men, and of history? From this confrontation, which is also a symbolic marriage, a relationship with art was born that materializes as an absolute sense of accuracy, measure, and balance. The visual arts, especially in their poetic dimension, involving the recreation of perceptible realities through a language that does not belong entirely to nature or entirely to man, have grown stronger through it over the centuries. Nikolai Kuzmin's work is, in this perspective, an aesthetic and cultural paragon.

Much has been written about him, but if only one thing were to be remembered, it would simply be that the language he uses on the canvas is, fundamentally, stripped of all its technical and theoretical construction: that of light. Every art student should stop in front of Kuzmin at least once.

Every art lover will find there an answer to their questions as a spectator, to their concerns and obsessions. What Nikolai Kuzmin does with such apparent ease is to grab the light and shape it, make it tangible, and then, with this thing that is not a thing, mold it with common ingredients. The feat of an alchemist, in short. In any artist, even those most honestly devoted to their art, somewhere one can always identify a small compartment of ambiguity.

With Kuzmin, there is no deceit, never, not anywhere. This allows for poetic absoluteness, the most precious gift that humans can enjoy. Twelve years ago, we evoked in our pages one of the artist's youthful memories, that of a "painting carried away in a storm". It was easy to see it as a metaphor for creation or the creator himself. Since then, the great storm shaping the earth and the destiny of men has doubled in strength. Let's follow the journey of this painting that was once torn from the ground. Art, like light, exists only in the gaze.

Thibaud Josset

January 27 - February 4, 2024, The "Art et Matière" room, Centre Robert Dumas, Rue de la République, 91720 Maisse, www.artetmatiere91.sitesfp.fr

February 14-18, 2024, ART CAPITAL :
- "Comparaisons" Room, ‘Inevitable Figuration’ Group (Carole Melmoux)
- "Dessin et Peinture à l'Eau" Room, Personal space of Nikolai Kuzmin
Grand Palais éphémère, Place Joffre, 75007 Paris, www.artcapital.fr

February 29 - April 6, 2024, Exhibition with sculptor Charles Favard, Galerie Le 140, 140 Grande rue, 92380 Garches, www.galeriele140.fr