Victor Borisov-Musatov

One of the largest Russian Symbolist artists, a painter and graphic artist. He created paintings in the genres of landscape, portrait, and subject scenes. He belonged to the Saratov school of painting, participated in the exhibitions “Scarlet Rose” and “Blue Rose”, was a member of the Moscow Association of Artists and the Union of Russian Artists, and the French Society of Fine Arts. The Museum-Estate of V. Borisov-Musatov is a branch of the Art Museum named after A.N. Radishchev.

Key ideas:

– The Symbolist orientation of Viktor Borisov-Musatov’s artistic reflections is beyond doubt. The painter came to this style as a method of comprehending and displaying the world, “having recovered” from Impressionism and Post-Impressionism. However, it was thanks to these transitional for the artist styles that his palette became lighter and brighter, and acquired a particularly clear sound.

– On the basis of Impressionist studios, the painter tries to create a world of ideal nature, making the sun his main model. Later, striving for balanced and more monumental forms, he retains the wealth of colors and creates the atmosphere of harmony and serenity.

– The musical names (Autumn Motive”, “Harmony”) emphasize the artist’s exceptional ability for a decorative vision of the world, which is realized in an exquisite color spectrum and in a virtuoso transmission of light and air.

– A special “nostalgia of the end of the century”, which embraced many creators, leads Musatov to the desire to create a very special pictorial world, combining real images with fictional ones. The search for “Eternal Femininity,” as a key problem for the Symbolists, concerned Musatov too. During his creative life, he solved it, trying to give an intimate image as a symbol of spiritual beauty, not external. He found it in the faces of his sister E. Musatova, his wife E. Alexandrova and his close friend N. Stanyukovich. M. Voloshin noted that V. Musatov revealed in the faces dear to him “gleams of the inner fading light.”

– In the genre sketches, the master uses opaque gouache and applies the fill of the planes with a paint depicting the details of the composition. Such a kind of decorative and a thorough compositional development are the cornerstones of the mature work of V. Musatov.