Caravan 1 (arrival)

Mediums: oil, canvas.
Location: The State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow (Russia).

Volkov, who deeply absorbed the original spiritual atmosphere of Turkestan of those times, used the motives characteristic of the region. Caravans, which the master painted all his life, are one of the key images of the East. They embody the rhythm of time, carry sounds and sensations in the artist’s poems: “crunch of desert sands”, “heat burns hot”. “Caravan-1” is a part of a peculiar triptych and the most Cubist variant of the theme. The expression has a conditional language: the tired face of a traveler is inscribed in numerous multi-coloured triangles, generalized camels are seen amidst a heap of multidirectional geometric planes denoting bales of goods.