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拍品專文
In the diverse and richly-coloured artistic oeuvre of Alexander Volkov, there is a select number of masterworks that truly reflect the artist’s philosophy and approach to the plastic arts. Without any doubt, Golden Nude, painted in 1915-16 during the most important period of the artist’s life, belongs to this significant group.
From the early 1910s Volkov gradually began portraying a grand synthesis of life experiences, revealing both the structure of life’s phenomena and their spiritual essence. While following his inner impulses, Volkov’s chosen path was in parallel to the leading artists of the Russian and Western-European Avant-Garde.
Throughout his artistic career, Alexander Volkov was a committed ‘sun-worshipper’; illustrated by his palette of gleaming yellows, flaming oranges and golden ochres. For Volkov, colour became a self-sufficient symbol, one of the key attributes of the artist’s distinctive style. In this sense, Golden Nude could be considered a colouristic manifesto: among the very few remaining large-scale works of this period, this painting embodies a liberated energy of colour and form.
This painting is unique as it shows, for the first time, both the influence of the ‘crystalline’ structures of Mikhail Vrubel (1856-1910) and the golds of the Byzantine mosaics of Saint Sophia's Cathedral in Kiev, as well as showcasing the entirely original ‘Volkov’ colouristic system. It is also remarkable for the sheer scale of the composition.
Golden Nude expresses the fundamental ideas which Volkov would later develop and explore throughout his artistic career: a living earth invigorated by the powerful energy of the sun, the joy of life, the beauty of human unity with nature and the synthesis of the Eastern and Western cultures.
We are grateful to Andrei Volkov, grandson of the artist, for providing this note.
From the early 1910s Volkov gradually began portraying a grand synthesis of life experiences, revealing both the structure of life’s phenomena and their spiritual essence. While following his inner impulses, Volkov’s chosen path was in parallel to the leading artists of the Russian and Western-European Avant-Garde.
Throughout his artistic career, Alexander Volkov was a committed ‘sun-worshipper’; illustrated by his palette of gleaming yellows, flaming oranges and golden ochres. For Volkov, colour became a self-sufficient symbol, one of the key attributes of the artist’s distinctive style. In this sense, Golden Nude could be considered a colouristic manifesto: among the very few remaining large-scale works of this period, this painting embodies a liberated energy of colour and form.
This painting is unique as it shows, for the first time, both the influence of the ‘crystalline’ structures of Mikhail Vrubel (1856-1910) and the golds of the Byzantine mosaics of Saint Sophia's Cathedral in Kiev, as well as showcasing the entirely original ‘Volkov’ colouristic system. It is also remarkable for the sheer scale of the composition.
Golden Nude expresses the fundamental ideas which Volkov would later develop and explore throughout his artistic career: a living earth invigorated by the powerful energy of the sun, the joy of life, the beauty of human unity with nature and the synthesis of the Eastern and Western cultures.
We are grateful to Andrei Volkov, grandson of the artist, for providing this note.