Painting: «On a March day. Monastic courtyard». 2015

Natalia YUSTITSKAYA

From 13 to 25 December 2021, an exhibition of works by Nikolai Vasilievich Kuzmin will be held in the exhibition hall of the Moscow Artists' Union of Painters at 20, 1-aya Tverskaya Yamskaya Street. Kuzmin is a prominent representative of the Moscow School of Painting, and an artist whose creativity has earned him wide recognition, both in Russia and abroad.

Nikolai Vasilievich was born on 14 August 1938 in the village of Talynskoye, in the Nizhny Novgorod oblast. After attending art school in the ancient town of Pavlovo-na-Oke, with its long-established craft tradition, he later graduated from the Stroganov Higher Art School.

The artist's childhood was rich in experiences of Russian architecture, folk songs and folk tales, painted toys and decorated everyday objects, and this heritage left an indelible mark on the soul of the future painter. Indeed, these subjects form recurring themes that would mark his work for many years to come, inspiring the series "Folk scenes" and "On the road to Murom", amongst others. Like a mirror, they reflect that folklorish sense of beauty which comes directly from the heart. Almost every painting is accompanied by excerpts of poetry or a Russian folk song, complementing the images of places from the artist's youth, his mother, or an early memory of the steps leading up to his childhood home, bathed in golden sunlight. In these works, painting serves to preserve these resplendent life memories, enabling a return to the experiences of childhood, and to the light and joy of the family home.

Having graduated from Stroganov School, Nikolai Kuzmin settled in Moscow and began to paint his beloved city naturalistically, and with a kind of intoxication. Gradually developing his own painting technique, the artist depicted grand estates and monasteries, skilfully transposing his sense of charm and wonder at such ancient architecture onto the canvas. A deep respect for the landscapes of Moscow and their place in history emanates from his work. Faithful to his creative creed, the artist transmits through these images the breath of centuries-old traditions and the power of popular culture. The paintings entitled "Simonov Monastery. Light from ancestral memory" or "At Russia's Heart" are penetrating and precise in their colourful and figurative polyphony.

From 1970 onwards, Nikolai Vasilievich began to participate in art exhibitions. The twin themes of indigenous nature and Russian architecture remained at the centre of his work. Paradoxically, it was his passion for these two subjects that took him to Europe. In the 1990s, he went first to Denmark, and then on to England and France. He earned fame and recognition for his deeply spiritual attitude to the world, as well as his acute artistic flair combined with pictorial expressiveness.

Via the characteristic and expressive style that emerges from his naturalistic works, the artist manages to create surprisingly subtle pieces that simultaneously testify to a great depth of feeling in their colourful intensity.

In reality, such apparent lightness belies Kuzmin's complete mastery of his art. The work on canvas is preceded by in-depth preparatory research, involving compositional sketches, watercolour studies, colour choice and defining the "meaning" that the subject must contain. Only then can the passage to the canvas take place – a process during which Nikolai Vasilievich works with determination and audacity, often completing a piece from start to finish in one go in order to preserve the freshness and immediacy of his inner perception.

Kuzmin's painting is characterised by his intrinsic desire to express, above all, a feeling from the heart. Nikolai Vasilievich confesses that each of his works expresses gratitude for the beauty he feels privileged to see. When asked what gives rise to his choice of images and colour, the artist observes that he paints directly, without formal external contours, following an authentic beauty that can only be perceived via one's inner, spiritual vision.

As Nikolai Vasilievich himself says: "In painting, I do not seek to render (…) matter in all its complexity and objectivity; rather, it is about creating a substance in light and colour (…)."

In the luminous atmosphere which characterises the artist's paintings, real objects often seem to enter an ephemeral dimension, while images of a spiritual nature can take on a palpable and authentic presence and reality. Yet they are never portrayed as separate from the real world and its people: behind each painting lies a very human-focused way of thinking.

The myths of ancient Greece thus hold a special place in Nikolai Vasilievich's work, distilling thousands of years of experience and wisdom. Prometheus, who gave men fire, and therefore life; Helios, moving across a pearly celestial vault on his golden chariot; the Titan bearing the weight of this celestial vault: for the spectator, they all constitute living incarnations of universal truths, promoting faith in man and the possibility of peace on earth. At the same time, the mythological subject matterof the painting is always dedicated to specific people and their exploits. Thus, for example, the painting entitled "Atlas supporting the celestial vault" is dedicated to the artist's mother and to all those who survived during the war years. These images of popular and universal culture convey unifying values and a noble principle of humanism.

The richness of N. V. Kuzmin's painted images and the breadth of his colour palette serve the noble ideals of truth, goodness and beauty.