'Where Moscow' writes about the attachment of the Russian painter Nikolai Kuzmin to the old Moscow.
Pictures:
Moscow on the paintings of Nikolay Kuzmin
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Just one of his albums contains dozens of landscapes in which the dominant features are churches and monasteries (yet so many were not included in the present edition, though they exist in paintings signed by the artist). The Kremlin, Kolomenskoe, the Novodevichiy Convent, Troitse-Lykovo all were honored with the artist's attention. Perhaps in time these buildings will be eternalized in special editions composed solely of the works of Nicolay Kuzmin. The artist did not seek high places with spectacular vistas. He looked at the city from ground level, as an ordinary observer would.But of course he saw it differently, through the eyes of an analytical and romantic painter.Every so often, an ancient or a contemporary apartment house or a commercial building would catch the artist's eye. Even a glance out his apartment window could inspire feelings of love for Moscow. But his main subjects remains cathedrals and churches, belfries and bell towers, monastery walls and towers, all crowned by treetops of every color of the rainbow. For the artist, they have a special spirit, a cathartic feeling of venerable old age, they are an inspiration. Kuzmin's canvases are remarkable for their range of joyous colors. Black is almost entirely absent from his palette.«Nature has no bad weather», goes the Russian saying. Nor for the artist: in snow and sleet, in hot, dry, and cold weather, he is at work. He has walked hundreds of miles, both in the historic center and in the outskirts. The artist continues to celebrate an eternal theme - Moscow. I. Petchkin
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