Rhythms of nomadic cultures

                             The culture and art of each people are unique.                   The
peoples of the North, living in the severe conditions of the Arctic, created
their own culture and difficult forms of art in places of the “sacral
geography”. The project “Rhythms of nomadic cultures” is turned to
interpretation of the art of the northern people, connected with sacred places,
people, their spiritual thoughts. 

The exhibition represents national and decorative-applied art of peoples of the North, works of painters – Afanasiy Osipov, Mikhail Lukin, Yuriy Spiridonov, Mikhail Starostin, graphic artists Afanasiy Munkhalov, Nikolai Kurilov and many others.

To a remarkable group of artists of the senior generation who stood at the origins of start and development of the Yakut professional art, Mikhail Nosov – the talented painter and the graphic artists, scientist-historian, local historian, ethnographer, the museum figure, the researcher of material culture and applied art of Yakuts. The colourful elements of the phosphor flashes of the polar lights find the refraction in his panel landscapes, temperamental, decorative by character composition and color of the landscapes “Polar lights” (1947), “Fall. Polar night” (1948).

Afanasiy Osipov is the leading master, whose art widely represents the contemporary art of the Republic of Sakha (Yakuita). For him the width of creative interests is characteristics. He works in various genres, monumental and easel painting, draws a lot.

Since the end of the 50-s beginning of the 60-s of the XX century, in the period of the short political “thaw” a lot of changes in the cultural life of Russia took place. These years started the pilgrimage of painters to the north, which opened for artists its severe beauty. Artists were coming back from trips with a mass of etudes or already ready pictures.

As the creative motto of the artist Mikhail Lukin it is possible to consider the works turned to a subject of a northern Polar region. The embodiment of the romantic concept of time is seen in etudes, sketches, pictures of this cycle.

Yuriy Spiridonov is the original northerner, remarkable feature of his talent is ability to correlate represented with the personal experience. In his canvases there lives the feeling of fragile purity of the native earth and reflection about its preservation for future generations. In painting the artist combines reality of forms of a subject with decorative effect of color, in color graphics often resorts to abstraction of a form, expressiveness of a silhouette and strengthening of the decorative effect inherent to the Arctic artists. The authentic nature of the North with bright paints and its harmonious unification with human are reflected in the picture “The Owner of Momsky Mountains” (2006).

The art of Marianna Lukina is conceptual and contemporary. Having strong creative temperament, she works in various genres, having shown herself as the artist, able to think wholly, widely, on a substantial scale. The subtlety, elegance and depth of painting are inherent to her figurative cloths noted by entry into the mythologized sphere of national.

Mikhail Starostin’s works attract with eccentricity of thinking, sharpness, plastic freeom of expression. His works surprise with unexpected grotesqueness of images. Painting of the artist is penetrated by spirit of search, which effect not in specific receptions of the drawing, and even not in strange characters, that occupy his pictures. At all convention and decorative effect of his compositions, they are reliable not only by the visual image, but also by the expression of feeling, which transfers a coloristic system of paintings. Starostin’s works are strongly connected with national type of thinking, with language of legends and stories.

Afanasiy Munkhalov began his art way in the first half of the 1960-s. To the middle of the 1960-s the specific manner of the graphic artist was created, based on constructability and at the same time decorative effect of compositions, ability to express rationally a certain collective folk origin, steady feeling of traditions and soil. The My North series created in 1965 became the recognized visit card of the Yakut art.

The first professional Yukaghir artist, the poet, the prose writer Nikolay Kurilov is the many-sided person. He works in an engraving and application, original graphics and painting, writes poetic works and fantastic stories, books for children, illustrated the first ABC-book for the people, conducts research about ethnogenesis, history and culture of Yukaghirs, is the editor of “Gevan” radio station. The main inexhaustible core of Nikoly Kurilov is the tundra – his House, his pain and hope, grief and love… Not casually in works of the artist the clean sheet of paper steadily is wrapped in infinite space of the tundra and plots of his works are so constant deer, people, dogs, yaranga. They are in applications and artist’s engravings.

The composition “Spring” is created to the “Art — Arctic” exhibition organized by the Arctic state institute of arts and cultures in 2013 in Rovaniemi in Finland. The girl symbolizes an image of the Arctic and spring where the spring represents revival of the Arctic culture. Ease, tenderness of a female image is supplemented with the symbolical image of the national ball of peoples of the North which is at the same time embodying a solar sign, fragile escapes of young trees. These expressive elements build the image to a universal symbol "bearing life, light to the world".

At the beginning of the XXth century the bone carving works had mostly utilitarian character, and then in art objects the subject line occurred, representing pets, herds of deer, horses, scenes from life of people, hunting for wild animals, historical events.

Vasiliy Poopov belongs to  a dynasty of hereditary carvers and bone carvers. Revival of an art carving on a mammoth tusk is connected with his name. In the 1940-s creativity of the master laid the main lines in development of small plasticity from a bone, was a striking example of a combination of a canon and novelty.

Terentiy Ammosov’s identity – the bright phenomenon in the history of the fine arts of Yakuita. The art way of the master began in the mid-forties and covers the period up to the end of the eightieth. Plots of his works are turned to images of the Yakut heroic epos, historical novels, northern fauna; along with it, the important place is taken by modern subject. Ammosov made an essential contribution to revival and development of traditional ornamental and subject composition.

Semyon Pesterev began his art way with the appeal to an animalistic genre. His favourite motives - hunting, rapid and full of dynamics dog and reindeer runnings, herds of horses, herds of deer on free pastures.

In composition “Reindeer crossing a river” the author shows hard work of the reindeer breeders overcoming resistance of water. Beginning from a wave of an oar, dynamics of the movement, accruing, proceeds in horizontal dash lines of the deer floating near the boat, in rhythmics of uneasy openwork of horns.

The author elaborately builds volume composition, successfully placing subject images on sidewalls of a monolithic support. Made on a flat relief, they don't break convention and integrity of composition, filling  with the figurative beginning the central theme. The plot reveals sketches of hazardous reindeer  races, catching of deer a lasso that strengthens and enriches plastic expressiveness of work. The carver managed to create the bright, filled with attractive romanticism severe shape of a northern country, to transfer character of the people living with it in a unification and a consent.

The main plots of works of Nikolay Amydayev are obtained from everyday life of northerners connected with the surrounding nature. In art of the master the traditions noted by lines of antiquity of national plasticity and requirements of a modern art became fundamental. The son of the bone carver - Vasily Amydayev carried on family tradition..

In the work “Installation of the Tordokh” the author, keeping the charm of direct impression, with big warmth narrates about building of the northern dwelling.

Maxim Pavlov – the professional sculptor, addressing to big and small forms of plasticity. With his decorative opportunities he is attracted especially by a tree and a mammoth tusk, creates genre compositions on folklore and northern subjects.

The professional master Fedor Markov in his art fruitfully processes rich tradition of the Yakut bone carving art and receptions of a carving of other glorified schools. Interest of the author is concentrated in the field of a tiny sculpture and a relief. The main properties of imitative language are the working out of the special style, smooth rotundity of forms, elegance of art skill and feeling of material.

In a changeable stream of the modern art  the works of Egor Savvin differ in originality and integrity. His individual style is based on an alloy of cultural wealth of the people and deeply personal relation to the settled plots.

The casket form “Competition on reindeer runs” reminds a birch bark box matarchakh *. In this object here is a scale, a rhythm, communication of the main components of decorative creativity - material, a form and function.

* Matarchakh - a vessel for dairy products

Konstantin Mamontov works in forms of a small and miniature sculpture, using various materials - a mammoth tusk, tooth of a cachalot, a horn of a deer and elk. His works are distinguished by a skillful combination of the graphic and semantic beginning with the decorative one. The careful modeling and polishing of a bone is by some kind of feature of an original “handwriting” of the master.

Mikhail Sleptsov's works attract with naturalness of figurative and plastic language, integrity. The master opens for himself the general spiritual sources with the people of the Arctic countries. In products “the national realism” - the plain of the image, a graphics feature peculiar to art thinking of natives of a circumpolar civilization is frankly shown.