"Impressionism as a source of light in conditions of shortage of air" - The Art Newspaper about the exhibition in St. Petersburg

Works from the collections of 27 Russian museums, presented at the exhibition in St. Petersburg, pay tribute to the traditions and aesthetics of impressionism, which were reflected in Soviet fine art of different years.

Exposition of the exhibition “Light and Air. Traditions of impressionism in Soviet painting” consists of four thematic sections: “Landscape”, “Portrait”, “Work”, “Rest”. The content is Soviet painting, from which, if possible, the ideological component has been expelled. Landscapes are as neutral as possible (they are the easiest to work with). Even some portraits are emphatically timeless: “Portrait of a woman. In the Garden” by Alexei Isupov was written in 1940, and the lady on it is almost pre-revolutionary. And only genre paintings inevitably bear the imprint of time, radiating constant optimism.

  From 27 museums in the country, curators selected more than a hundred works by Soviet masters. Among them are those who were glorified by the avant-garde, whose era ended in the early 1930s: there are Yuri Pimenov, Vasily Rozhdestvensky, and Robert Falk. For some, the “traditions of impressionism” became a stage of internal creative evolution, for others - a refuge.

Museum of Art of St. Petersburg of the XX–XXI centuries (division of the Manege Central Exhibition Hall)
“Light and air. Traditions of impressionism in Soviet painting"
Until March 10, 2024