Old aul

Mediums: watercolour, colour pencils, paper.
Location: The State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow (Russia).

The outwardly static images of the inhabitants of the aul (village), united on a sheet plane, do not hide the symbolic capacity of the artist’s thoughts about the fate of the three men and three women depicted. Characters with large-scale faces can be called beautiful – the author elevated the ethnic characteristic of each of them to an aesthetic ideal. Though, their sadness somehow reached universal size. Central Asia not only accepted, and sometimes saved disgraced intellectuals, including Jews, but also inspired them to create better works.