Pablo Ruiz-y-Picasso "Acrobat On A Ball"

Pablo Ruiz-y-Picasso was born on October 25, 1881 in the city of Málaga, Spain. Died on April 8, 1973 in Mougins, France.

He studied under his father - José Ruiz, in School of Fine Arts in La Coruña, then in Madrid’s Royal Academy of San Fernando, taking a great interest in French art.

In 1900 he moved to Paris for the first time, and since 1904 lived there permanently. On that time (1901-1904) fell his ‘Blue Period’: hues of blue prevailed in the master’s palette. For pictures of that period images of poverty, melancholy and sorrow were typical.

The following, ‘Rose Period’, is characterized by a more cheery style with orange and pink colors, and featuring many circus people, acrobats and harlequins.

‘Acrobat On A Ball’ (1905) is one of the best and most famous paintings of Picasso’s ‘Rose Period’, the saga of friendship. It was painted in happy and inspiring time of the painter’s life, when ‘light breathing’ and transparent colours replaced rather gloomy and stern works of the ‘Blue Period’.

It was then that the matter of intimacy and fraternal bonds became principal in Picasso’s life. The main characters of his works are acrobats, circus actors and wandering buffoons. They provoked sympathy and interest in him, despite the society’s attitude towards them. Such indigent, but free people have to unite, protecting each other like a big family in order to survive in the world of money and ‘honest estates’.

In this picture the painter represents a strong, mature man and a fragile girl, gracefully balancing on a ball. In comparison of two figures – the supple, light acrobat and the hefty athlete stoutly sitting on a cube – the motif of the picture is brought out. It is the subject of friendship and inner community of people, united by the toil of circus artistes.

The language of contrasts attracts the artist: heavy and static shapes are combined with amazingly unstable ones, what creates the wonderful harmony of the composition. The girl without the seated athlete will instantly lose her balance and slide off the ball. The leg of the strongman, bent at right angles, is visionally interpreted as a support for her body. And the man, left without his partner, will never be able to rise from the cube. The magic of the picture is found in subtle nuances of lines, shapes, in consonance of colours, in composure of the whole. There’s no constrain in figures. The space is expanded; it is filled with air and light.

The balancing acrobat and the seated man are thoroughly opposed to each other and mutually enriched through the contradiction.

‘Acrobat on a ball’, where the silhouettes and the scenery are expressed in ashy rose-blue tint, bears joyous and tender mood. Its colouration begets a new, romantic reality. At this period Picasso pays attention to the picturesque atmosphere of the work. The painter creates a refined ‘hieroglyph’ of two origins: frailty and strength. It appears that he prepares himself for the conversion to another manner of painting, that’s why this picture is often called a work of intermediate stage between his ‘Blue’ and ‘Rose’ periods.

Mikhail Aleksandrovich Vrubel “The Seated Demon”

Mikhail Aleksandrovich Vrubel (March 17, 1856 – April 14, 1910) was born in Omsk. In 1880 he finished the Law faculty of St Petersburg University and then he studied at the Imperial Academy of Arts.
M.A. Vrubel is one of the founders of symbolist movement. His pictures are very emotional and fabulous. His painting’s background is quiet and silence, which may possibly be heard. He shows some moments and emotions that couldn’t be expressed in words.

One of his well-known pictures is Demon. Mikhail Vrubel was looking for the image of spirit freedom. The Seated Demon is young and yearning for the real world which is beautiful and attractive, but he is divested of it and couldn’t join it. He is sorrowful, wistful and strong, but at the same time he could find nothing to use his force. Deep in his thoughts he feebly embraced his knees. The background of the demon is a queer landscape. It is formed of red, crimson, brown and golden mosaic patches. The demon himself becomes similar to the fiery sky covered with the violet clouds; fantastical flowers; the attachment of the stones and ingots. He is surrounded with rocks and cliffs that look like semi-precious stones. The demon seems to be its’ part. He is master of this world.
Mikhail Vrubel knowingly chooses a kind of cramped format of this canvas. The artist cut the figure off and in that way he emphasizes the demon’s infirmity. The beginning of the infinity and concreteness of the limits are combined with each other.
The demon doesn’t display an imperious triumph, but his grief is expressed in the look. The demon is an ideal person. When you see this picture you get the impression of fantastical, improbable world, but this world is lifeless and fixed.
The seated demon is a myth of Mikhail Vrubel himself. The image is doleful, but this is the dole of youth. It is far from hopelessness and the demon is full of belief in his powerful wings.
The demon is not a devil, but he is an angel and symbol of passionate creature that rises in rebellion against God.

Thomas Gainsborough (1727 – 1788) My favourite painter and one of the most famous portrait and landscape painters of 18th century.

Thomas Gainsborough was born on Wednesday, May 14, 1727 in Sudbury.

He moved to London to develop his skills as an artist. He was quickly adopted by a circle of painters and draughtsmen who admired the work of William Hogarth and he contributed to a number of important artistic ventures including the decoration of the Court Room at the Foundling Hospital and the supper boxes at Vauxhall Gardens.

There is some evidence that he was regarded as a specialist landscape painter at this early period and he contributed to the background of at least one portrait by another artist. He married in 1746 and returned to Sudbury early in 1749.
In his native town he painted his first masterpiece, Mr and Mrs Robert Andrews, a conversation piece much in the style of the work of one of his teachers in London, Francis Hayman.

After the birth of his two daughters he moved to Ipswich which gave him more opportunity to obtain portrait commissions. He developed a naturalistic approach to portraiture by abandoning 'conversation pieces' and painting a number of straight forward head-and-shoulder portraits. By 1758 he felt that he should see whether his work was acceptable to a more discerning public and he visited Bath. After about six months it was clear that there was a ready market for his portraits and he moved to the city with his family late the following year.

Under the influence of van Dyck, Rubens and Claude his style developed rapidly and by 1761 he was contributing exceptional work to the annual Society of Artists exhibitions in London. Uniquely known to catch a good likeness, he gradually assimilated this quality with the grandeur of van Dyck and by the time he showed his work at the inaugural exhibition of the Royal Academy in 1769 his skill was unassailable. Portraits such as the Blue Boy

and Abel Moysey MP show him to be both commanding and humane and landscapes like Peasants and Colliers show him at the peak of his powers.
In 1774, perhaps because he declined to exhibit at the Academy, he moved to London. At Schomberg House in Pall Mall he built a studio in the garden and he continued to attract a wide clientele. Three years later he began to work for the Royal family which prompted him to exhibit at the Academy once more. The Watering Place, which was included in the 1777 exhibition, was described by one commentator as 'by far the finest Landscape ever painted in England'.

In 1784 he finally broke with the Academy after they refused to hang another Royal portrait as he wished. Instead he began to hold annual exhibitions of his work at Schomberg House.
After visiting Antwerp and the Lake District Gainsborough began to select his sitters more carefully and develop 'fancy' pictures which were based on the work of Murillo and attempted to rival Old Master paintings. He contracted cancer and died on 2 August 1788. Reputedly his last words were: 'We are all going to Heaven, and Van Dyke is of the company'.

Nicholas Konstantinovich Roerich

Nicholas Konstantinovich Roerich was born in St. Petersburg, Russia, on October 9, 1874, the first-born son of lawyer and notary, Konstantin Roerich and his wife Maria. He was raised in the comfortable environment of an upper middle-class Russian family with its advantages of contact with the writers, artists, and scientists who often came to visit the Roerichs. At an early age he showed a curiosity and talent for a variety of activities. When he was nine, a noted archeologist came to conduct explorations in the region and took young Roerich on his excavations of the local tumuli. The adventure of unveiling the mysteries of forgotten eras with his own hands sparked an interest in archeology that would last his lifetime. Through other contacts he developed interests in collecting prehistoric artifacts, coins, and minerals, and built his own arboretum for the study of plants and trees.

While still quite young, Roerich showed a particular aptitude for drawing, and by the time he reached the age of sixteen he began to think about entering the Academy of Art and pursuing a career as an artist. His father did not consider painting to be a fit vocation for a responsible member of society, however, and insisted that his son follow his own steps in the study of law. A compromise was reached, and in the fall of 1893 Nicholas enrolled simultaneously in the Academy of Art and at St. Petersburg University.

In 1895 Roerich met the prominent writer, critic, and historian, Vladimir Stasov. Through him he was introduced to many of the composers and artists of the time -- Mussorgsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, Stravinsky, and the basso Fyodor Chaliapin. At concerts at the Court Conservatory he heard the works of Glazunov, Liadov, Arensky, Wagner, Scriabin, and Prokofiev for the first time, and an avid enthusiasm for music was developed. Wagner in particular appealed to him, and later, during his career as a theater designer, he created designs for most of that composer's operas. Moreover, musical terms and analogies can appropriately be applied to Roerich's painting. He frequently related music to the use of color and color harmonies, and applied this sense to his designs for opera.

The late 1890's saw a blossoming in Russian arts, particularly in St. Petersburg, where the avant-garde was forming groups and alliances, led by the young Sergei Diaghilev, who was among the first to appreciate his talents as a painter and student of the Russian past.

One of Diaghilev's first achievements was the founding, with Princess Maria Tenisheva and others, of the magazine The World of Art. This magazine enjoyed a relatively short life but had an important influence in Russian art circles. The magazine declared itself the enemy of the academicians, the sentimentalists, and the realists. It introduced to its readership, which was made up mostly of the intelligentsia, the vital elements of Russian artistic circles, European post-impressionism, and the modernist movement. Roerich contributed to it and sat on its editorial board. Other Russian painters involved were Alexandre Benois and Leon Bakst, who later became Roerich's co-workers in the early days of Diaghilev's Ballets Russes.

After finishing his university thesis, Roerich planned to set off for a year in Europe to visit the museums, exhibitions, studios, and salons of Paris and Berlin. Just before leaving he met Helena, daughter of the architect Shaposhnikov and niece of the composer Mussorgsky. There seems to have been an immediate mutual attraction, and they were soon engaged to be married. On his return from Europe their marriage took place.

Born in pre-revolutionary Saint Petersburg, Russia to the family of a well-to-do notary public, he lived around the world until his death in Punjab, India. Trained as an artist and a lawyer, his interests lay in literature, philosophy, archaeology and especially art.

Nicholas Roerich is famous for his series of pictures such as Russian Towns (1903-1904), Ocean (1922), Sancta (1922), His Country (1924), Sikkim (1924), Banners of the East (1924-1925), Himalayan (1924), Sanctuaries and Citadels (1925), Maitreya (1926), Lakes and Gilgit Path (1925), etc. As for me, I like the majority of his works, but most of all I am keen on paintings that belong to three series (His Country, Himalayan and Lakes and Gilgit Path).

And most of all I would like to draw your attention to one painting called She Who Leads (from His Country). Have you ever seen it? No…well, then I’ll try to describe it and emotions that this work emotionalizes.(You also can see it on the left.)

When I saw this work for the first time I could not look away. Sudden feeling of tranquillity and pacification appeared in my heart. It seemed that time stopped and the whole world became infinite and quiet. As most of Roerich’s works this one is pastel shades. From my point of view, it is palette of the painting that gives us the sense of calmness. In the foreground we can see a woman and a man. She is the picture of kindness, loftiness, patience and calmness. We do not know who are they to each other…but suppose that she waits somebody who she really loves. And obviously this man is not that very somebody. Maybe he loves her or just wishes her to become his. In the background we see spaciousness of mountains. I believe that author wanted to show how people are small and that the nature is greater and more eternal. Perhaps, the mountains reveal the love that exists between this woman and that somebody. This feeling is immeasurable, timeless…

Usually on Roerich’s works we can not notice brush strokes. And possibly, his paintings are a bit unnatural and unrealistic, but nevertheless, I think they reveal the real beauty of mountains, ponds, riers, people and the whole world around us…

Arkhip Ivanovich Kuindzhi (or Arkhip Kuinji , Russian: Архип Иванович Куинджи (January 27, 1842 (?) - July 24, 1910) - Russian landscape painter.Arkhip Kuindzhi was born in January 1841 in Mariupol (present-day Ukraine), but he spent his youth in the city of Taganrog. He grew up in a poor family, and his father was a Greek shoemaker Ivan Khristoforovich Kuindzhi (sometimes spelt Emendzhi). Arkhip was six years old when he lost his parents, so that he was forced to make his living, working at the church building site, grazing domestic animals, and working at the corn merchant's shop. During the five years, from 1860 to 1865, Arkhip Kuindzhi worked as retoucher in the photo studio of Isakovich in Taganrog. Kuindzhi tried to open his own photographer's studio, but without success. After that Kuindzhi left Taganrog for Saint Petersburg.He studied painting mainly independently and in St.Petersburg Academy of arts (from 1868; the full member since 1893).

Rainbow (1900-1905).

He was co-partner of mobile art exhibitions (Peredvizhniki, a group of Russian realist artists who in protest to academic restrictions formed an artists' cooperative, which evolved into the Society for Traveling Art Exhibitions (Peredvizhniki in 1870. During this early period Kuinczhy felt Ivan Aivazovsky's influence.In 1872 the artist left the academy and worked as a freelancer. The painting Na ostrove Valaam (On the Valaam Island) was the first artwork, which Pavel Tretyakov acquired for his art gallery. In 1873, Kuindzhi exhibited his painting The Snow, which received the bronze medal at the International Art Exhibition in London in 1874. In the middle of 1870s he created a number of paintings in which the landscape motif was designed for concrete social associations in the spirit of Peredvizhniki (Forgotten village, 1874; Chumatski path, 1875; both - in Tretyakov gallery).In his mature period Kuindzhy aspired to transfer the most expressive on illumination of a condition of the nature. He applied composite receptions (high horizon, etc.), creating panoramic views. Using light effects and intense colors shown in main tones, he depicted the illusion of illumination (The Ukrainian night, 1876; Birch Grove, 1879; After a thunderstorm, 1879; all three are in Tretyakov Gallery; Night on Dnepr, 1880 in Russian museum, St.Petersburg).

Elbrus. Moonlit night.

His later works are remarkable by decorative effects of color building.Kuindzhi lectured at the St.Petersburg Academy of arts (Professor since 1892; professor-head of landscape workshop since 1894; but he was fired in 1897 for support of student's protests). Among his students were artists such as Arkady Rylov, Nicholas Roerich, Konstantin Bogaevsky, and others. Kuindzhi initiated creation of the Society of artists (1909; later - the Society named after A.I. Kuindzhi).

Marc Chagall

There’s hardly someone that hasn’t seen that whimsical and peculiar picture of no less distinctive painter as Marc Chagall. I mean his famous one “Over the town”. It represents enough aspects to maintain the life priorities of the artist himself and as every work of him it shines with love, imagery and the flying nature of thought. The thought of one of the foremost artists of the 20th Century.

Marс Zakharovich Сhagall, was born on July 7, 1887, in Vitebsk, Belorussia. His birth coincided with conflagration in the suburbs like a signal of appearance of the new significant fate that would substitute the ruins of old art with new aspiration. His family couldn’t fully appreciate all the capacity of their amazing boy. Young Chagall was taught with love for religion. Later a lot of biblical undertones would take their place on master’s canvases. Chagall left the Jewish elementary school and school of painting in Vitebsk and moved to St Petersburg. Believing his brushwork’s his real mission, in 1907 Chagall entered the school directed by Nikolai Roerich. There came some hopes and myths dethroned about it and he transferred to private education. Wherever he went he realized how individual and unlike was his manner of drawing, how important was the brush as the way to oppose the political oppression and the art of so-called avant-gardists. Cause he supposed the scientific method of art approach to be worthless and his ideas could find their approval in Paris where he met leading poets and painters. Chagall always stressed the importance of Paris for his development. But despite his late recognition in Russia he often repeated ‘my motherland is in my soul’.

Chagall contributed to the best world exhibitions, participated in them and in 1914 in Vitebsk he married Bella Rosenberg who would become an inspiration for many of his works, would predominate in the foreground of all his life. He was a founder, director, and the most popular teacher at the Vitebsk Academy. Desiring to express all points of view on art, he was ousted by the Malevich fraction and left Vitebsk for Moscow where many collaboration would wait for him. He left Russia.. settled fruitfully in Paris.. looked for shelter in the United States.. His palette and gaudy colouring expresses that multi-coloured period and the multiple character of all his living.. One thing, the death of Bella stopped Chagall's creativity for many months. Despite his sorrows he remained an optimist, and with every brushstroke, every green, blue, or purple face of his violinists, every rooster and flying cow…every head detached from body as the manifestation of soul’s and thought’s omnipotence makes senseless every attempt to condemn the painter for the lack of realism. An important factor in Chagall's recovery as a painter was his second wife, Valentine Brodskii. She encouraged him to undertake large artistic projects (the decoration of the ceiling of the Operas). He also explored the technique of stained-glass, designing windows for many establishments of world value. In the West, Chagall had countless exhibitions and retrospectives. In Russia, after many years of silence and disregard he was cautiously but identified as the painter. Finally his native town penetrated into his extasic love for its crooked fences and mournful houses thanking him posthumously with opening a Chagall Museum in Vitebsk.

The person going ahead with the face turned back is the key image in the art of Marc Chagall and it’s not surprising in his flower of age he devoted himself to writing memoirs, created documentary-poetic life description that reflects his formation as such a distinguished man with his unique fate. Written in French and read by me in Russian version it showed however the artistry of his any style. His pictures’re like words: every essential message has the following flashing energy like the array of daubs merged and guessed precisely makes its general impression. Chagall wastes no space as every square centimetre of his canvas is filled with vibrant and powerful colours. We can’t know the exact sense concentrated in picture but what’s the most magic is revealing from under the hand of what person such vivant and completed creations had fluttered. I think when you realize the things touched you’re really marvelous it’s what makes you a die-hard fan and nothing more can’t prevent you from keeping the secret an artist shared with you through time and space. The pictures of Marc Chagall to my mind are capable to be regarded as the very equivalent of pepole's spirit.

Francisco José de Goya

Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes (March 30, 1746– April 16, 1828) was born in Fuendetodos, Spain, in the kingdom of Aragon. Three years later his family bought a house in Zaragoza and moved there. Goya dreamt to become an artist since his childhood. Being a little boy he ornamented walls of a sheep-fold with a charcoal.
In 1760 his dream began coming true. He became a pupil of H.Lusana y Martinez in Zaragoza. For the model of respectability Goya took the famous Spanish artist, Rodriguez de Silva Velasquez.
In 1769 Goya went to Italy, where he won a prize in a painting competition organized by the City of Parma. Rome was a place where the artist comprehended antique art. In 1771 the artist came back to Zaragoza and took up painting pictures in the style of Italian baroque. His painting began to show signs of the delicate tonalities for which he became famous. Over the course of five years, he had decorated and illustrated the bare stone walls of El Escorial and the Palacio Real de El Pardo, the newly built residences of the Spanish monarchs. In 1780, Goya was elected a member of the Royal Academy of San Fernando. In 1780-81, he worked on the frescoes of El Pilar in Saragossa. On his return to Madrid he received the royal invitation to paint one of seven large altarpieces for the newly built church of San Francisco el Grande. The King’s opinion of his work must have been favorable, because in 1785, the paintings were first shown to the public, Goya was appointed Deputy Director of Painting in the Academy. In 1786, he became a court painter.

The Parasol (1777)
Size: 104 x 152 cm

On the foreground Goya has depicted two young people. They are in love with each other and are spending time together in fresh air. The young man is holding a parasol above the girl’s head. He wants her to feel comfort in the hot Spanish sun. We may notice that the man’s position somehow resembles the young woman’s one. He tries to pose in such a way not to restrict her movements. The couple is wearing national Spanish clothes. On the foreground there is the nature looking at which I may say that it’s probably the summer. The colours are warm and deep. They are maroon, fawn, buff, royal blue, olive green and others.

Autumn, or The Grape Harvest (1786)
Size: 190 x 275 cm

The main figures of the picture are 4 people who have gathered the grape harvest. In the middle there is a young girl who is keeping the basket of grapes in her hands. On the right side there is a young man looking at her with admiration. Other people surrounding the girl want to taste the ripe grapes. On the background we may see a peaceful nature and people gathering the harvest. The subjects in the middle of the picture are wearing smart clothes as if the harvest is a kind of a holiday. I think the artist wanted to show that he enjoyed the ordinary everyday life. The colours are bright and contrast. There are mainly all hues of blue and green which show purity of nature.


1792-1793 are the years of Goya’s illness which caused the artist’s deafness. During this time the personality interests the artist most of all. That’s why he does the portraits of ordinary people.

The portrait of Sebastian Martinez (1792)

Sebastian Martinez was Goya’s close friend. He’s portrayed almost at full-length. His face has got spiritual and expressive features and sharp eyes. The subject seems to be intelligent and concentrating on something. He’s holding a kind of document in his hands. Maybe its content makes the man portrayed think about some important things. He’s wearing European clothes. There is nothing on the back of Martinez, just a black background. The colours are quite calm. There artist doesn’t use bright paints to draw the viewers’ attention to the personality itself but not to its appearance.

As an artist of romanticism, Francisco Goya was determined to depict peoples’ personality, their inner worlds. He mainly pictures creative, sensitive and strong people who firs of all listen to their hearts. I’ve got such an impression that the aim of this artist was to teach the viewers to enjoy their ordinary lives, to get much pleasure looking at the nature and other things that surround them.