We are glad to introduce our collection here, although the website only demonstrates a small part of it. Still, this is quite a representative part. More, it gives a quite definite idea of the essential formative principles of the Art Prima Gallery.
We are interested in painting per se making a focus on Russian realistic painting through all its history – from the turn of the nineteenth century up to the beginning of the twenty-first century. Deeply rooted in the traditions of the European art, Russian realistic tradition can be viewed, figuratively speaking, as “the trunk” of the Russian school of painting, from which all the “branches” of the other trends available in Russian art grow, which can be mainly explained by Russian realism being of extremely high artistic quality.

The quality of a painting depends on a number of factors. In the first place, it depends on the painter’s professional skill. Century after century, generation after generation, have artists of different origin been trying to convey the beauty of the surrounding world in paint, discovering and thoroughly studying the laws of the interplay of colours and that of light and shadow and different shades of one tone, and thus building up the language of painting. This language, seemingly simple, is, actually, extremely complicated. To be able to understand and use it you need more than talent or desire. It requires a lot of effort, hard work and great patience, or even  more – a pupil needs to meet his teacher. Their relationship, following the master-to-pupil tradition known in art teaching since time immemorial, has never been confined to merely sharing a certain number of clever professional ways. The teacher and pupil have always sought to establish spiritual solidarity, common views on life. Efrem Zverkov once narrated an episode remembering his teacher, Arkady Plastov: they used to paint sunset studies together near the village of Prislonikha. The day’s work was closing to its end. The sun had just set down and suddenly a thin shining sickle moon appeared on the light, though quickly darkening sky. “How lucky we are, Efrem, to be artists! We are able to see this!” exclaimed Plastov.

It is worth noting that the most precious things about the painterly tradition is the individual experience of a painter whose artistic biography starts with the stories of life and work of the masters in the preceding generations he has learned from. It is only then that the language of painting becomes the ‘mother tongue’ for the painter and he knows how to use it to express his vision of the world’s beauty. It is only then that we can say that Master is born. The path to this end is evidently far from being easy but the horizons it opens are boundless.
Ample proof of the above statement was offered by the work of the Union of Russian Artists, or rather of its “oil painting unit”. The Union is known to bring forth an amazing lot of names who made the glory of the Russian realistic school from the early 20th century: Abram Arkhipov, Apollinary Vasnetsov and Vasily Vasnetsov, Mikhail Vrubel, Igor Grabar, Stanislav Zhukovsky, Konstantin Korovin, Philipp Malyavin, Mikhail Nesterov, Ilya Ostroukhov, Konstantin Pervukhin, Vasily Perepletchikov, Pyotr Petrovichev, Valentin Serov, Alexei Stepanov, Vasily Surikov, Leonard Turzhansky and Konstantin Yuon.  Paintings from the brush of the representatives of the Union are remarkably versatile, individualized in style and broad-minded in subject and manner, as well as open to all innovations of the time. Those paintings combined Russian Realism and French Impressionism producing a most potent painterly language, extremely poetic, able to portray any, even the most subtle human types, emotions and moods.
More, the realistic manner has proved to be so vigorous and appealing in Russian art that neither the allure of the non-figurative experiments in the early 20th century, nor the Procrustean bed of the socialist control that in the Soviet time turned into an ideological “must”, were able to kill it. That vigour derived from the great love Russian artists had for their land, for the charms of its landscape. Thus, Alexei Savrasov would say to his pupils: “Only when you do love nature and you do learn from it, you will be able to find your real self. There exist many painterly manners. However, it is not the manner that matters, but the ability to see beauty… If you feel no love for nature, you can’t be an artist, you shouldn’t be…If you have no heart, your painting will be nothing but frigidity and machinery, a useless theory” (quoted from the memoirs of Konstantin Korovin). It was the paintings of Alexei Savrasov and especially those of Isaak Levitan that made landscape extremely important for the Russian realistic tradition. Thus, Levitan’s landscapes, admirable and psychologically subtle, changed the academic and public attitude towards this genre of painting. “Just a beautiful view” became a source of pure art. Real art neither “teaches” nor “declares”. It does not seek to “prove” anything either. It is only intended to witness the beauty of the world.

Landscape became that daedal ‘refuge’ that helped to preserve and even enhance the traditions of Russian realistic school in the Soviet time as it can be seen in the work of Sergei Gerasimov, Arkady Plastov, Vitold Byalynitsky-Birulya, Nikolai Krymov, Nikolai Romadin, Viktor Tsyplakov, Vladimir Stozharov, Fyodor Glebov, Nikita Fedosov and  Vyacheslav Zabelin. The present-day landscape masters list many excellent painters of the older generation: Vyacheslav Zabelin. Alexei and Sergei Tkachev, Viktor Ivanov, Efrem Zverkov, Valentin Sidorov, Yuri Kugach, Andrei Tutunov, Gennady Dariin. Landscape has also become an instrument of self-expression for such our contemporaries as Vladimir Shcherbakov, Vladimir Telin, Mikhail Abakumov, Sergei Gavrilyachenko, Yuri Grishchenko, Nikolai Zaitsev, Georgy Leman, Igor Orlov, Gennady Pasko, Valery Polotnov, Valery Strakhov, Alexei Sukhovetsky, Alexander Tsyplakov, and many other talented and original artists.

To stick to our subject, a quality painting should be marked with the artist’s individuality. Without diverting from the tradition and being able to employ easily any of its accumulated means and ways, a true master should be utterly sincere in his work that is his paintings are supposed to reveal the character of the artist’s own personality, to show his “true face” which won’t be difficult to tell from the disguise of a mere coup de maître.

Another sign of a quality painting should be considered its integrity and artistry: that apparent ease, as if by magic, and that force of persuasion, with which the artist manages to bring life, by means of some inconceivable figurative ways, onto the plain surface of a canvas, suddenly turning it into a live, wonderful world, fruit of the artist’s imagery. We can enter that world and enjoy the birds singing or smell the odour of a green lawn starred with flowers, or we can feel the earth breathing its warmth. Fully aware that all that is nothing other than play of our imagination and we are “just looking at a picture”, we, however, enjoy the happiness of seeing the beauty.

Painting has always been and will be an elite art. Elite in the sense that to understand it one should know the language of painting, which requires intellect, but also in the sense that both the artist and the viewer should know how to “tune” their mind and heart to “seeing” the beautiful, which needs some inward emotional effort. But if you have been able to “see and understand” the art of painting at least once, you would never turn away from it, for painting is rewarding, elevating and purifying heart and mind.

Anastasia Tsyplakova, Managing Director of the Art Prima Gallery