A piece of writing by the art critic Nina Gordeyeva (Mikhaylova) about Kuzmin's painting and what influenced it.

The beautiful paintings by Nikolai Kuzmin are characterised by combination of Russian and Western European cultures.

The painter can touch the deepest soul movements, and it is brightly expressed in his works which possess a great aesthetic power.

The artist continues and develops the tradition of Russian classical lyrical landscape. And the talent has filled his inner world with inspiration and purity. Nikolai Kuzmin expresses very lightly and delicately the atmosphere, the air, the space full of light. And soft shapes are fashioned from the light. Coloured vibrations are achieved by half-tones and by fine colour-shading. The air in his works seems to vibrate under the influence of his attitude to nature. The visible lightness and simplicity are achieved by the high professionalism. He paints with light free strokes; the lines are almost invisible.

Such colouring depends on soft, always pure colour relations; there are no colourless strokes in his works.

Kuzmin is a Russian painter, he comes from the Russian traditional art. He treats the object itself very attentively, induces a spirit, makes it the symbol, the ideal.

The strongest point of his works is the technique of painting itself, the colour harmony. All the colours are natural, not excessive, and thus having the most intense significance for the composition.

The object of his spiritual search is to find authentic truth and authentic beauty, but not the traces of modern time. And he fashions out the beauty of the chaos of the world.

His cycle "The Folk Pictures" is remarkable for its wonderful and delicate pearl colouring.

Enchanted and luxurious birds, bushes, fruits, flowers have become the symbols of flourishing nature. They grow, reaching sometimes enormous grotesque sizes. They possess not only decorative, but their own independent meaning. They even seem to possess a joyful passion of their own. The majestic virgin often dominates in the composition; she is the pure soul, surrounded with festive light.

Before us we have an artist who, in a world of artistic disarray, persistently searched and understood. He focussed on knowledge, experience, tradition and professional skills.

Nina Gordeyeva (Mikhaylova), art critic.