1916-1995
Alexander Dmitrievich Tikhomirov was born in Baku into the family of a civil engineer.
He spent his childhood and youth in Baku, where he lived with his parents and sisters in an apartment on the second floor of a large house with verandas, surrounded by a garden. Alexander Dmitrievich began drawing at the age of 15.
The ancient city with its bright colors, seascapes, fancy architecture, picturesque streets, sparkling multi-colored bazaars, extravagant Muslim holidays made a strong impression on the young artist, charged him with energy, became a stimulus for creativity, and a source of inspiration.
After 6 years of school, he worked in a painting advertising workshop and studied at the workers' faculty.
In the 1930s and 40s, Baku was one of the largest cultural centers in the country. Famous foreign musicians and the best musicians of Moscow and St. Petersburg often came to this picturesque city. The Baku Philharmonic gave several classical music concerts a week. Interesting, bold performances were staged by BRT - Baku Workers' Theater.
The atmosphere that reigned in the city had a huge influence on the formation of the personality of the artist, who later became a fine connoisseur and connoisseur of classical music, theater, and a man of encyclopedic knowledge in the field of art and culture, which was reflected in his paintings and graphic works.
There were many museums and exhibitions in Baku. The political climate was much softer than in Moscow, relations between people were more open and friendly.
And the very appearance of Baku - then an old eastern city - encouraged creativity: the magical color of the bazaars, the bizarre architecture of the ancient city, the rich colors of sea sunsets, Muslim holidays. These vivid visual impressions live on even in the artist’s later works.
In 1934 he entered the 2nd year of the Baku Art School at the painting department. Starting from the 3rd year, he studied under the guidance of the artist I. Ryzhenko (formerly a student of I. Repin), who gave him, according to A. Tikhomirov, “a strong realistic foundation and pictorial culture.”
In 1935, as an 18-year-old boy, he participated in a painting exhibition dedicated to the anniversary of Sh. Rustaveli. His talent was noticed by the wider artistic community, and his works were acquired by the Azerbaijan Museum of Fine Arts.
After graduating from college in 1938, he worked under a contract on paintings for the Azerbaijan Anti-Religious Museum.
During the Great Patriotic War, being exempt from military service due to blindness in his right eye, he worked at the Art Factory of the Azerbaijan Branch of the Art Fund. At the same time, he joined the Azerbaijan Union of Artists, worked on propaganda posters and portraits of heroes of the Patriotic War.
In 1942, he left for Khudat, a suburb of Baku. I constantly took orders there, the fees for which were a tangible help for a large family. Tikhomirov worked on portraits of war heroes, paintings on military themes, and propaganda posters.
At the invitation of I. Ryzhenko, he wrote with him two panels “The Defeat of the Nazis in the Caucasus” for the Baku House of the Red Army and Navy.
From the memoirs of the artist’s daughter Anna Tikhomirova:
“Despite the fact that an excellent environment for the development of a creative personality was created in Baku, young people dreamed of Moscow, its museums, exhibitions. They dreamed of opportunities to communicate with famous artists, not realizing that an old, serious school of painting and drawing, and in the capital's art institutes Soviet academicians ruled the roost, concerned only with their party careers. And yet, many Baku artists moved to the capital - A. Sakhanov, V. Artamonov, V. Bordzilovsky.
A. Tikhomirov also moved to the capital.
From the memoirs of Tikhomirov’s wife Natalya Anatolyevna Vinogradova:
“Alexander Dmitrievich also decided to move to Moscow, but not for career reasons, the thought of which was completely alien to him. Along with the desire to go to college and have the opportunity to enjoy contemplating the works of great masters, Alexander Dmitrievich hoped to get into the environment of people passionate about the problems of creativity, which, as he believed, would help him solve his personal problems that stood in the way of his further creative development.”
In 1945 he entered the 3rd year of the Moscow Art Institute. Surikov. Studied with A. Osmerkin. However, in the 4th year he was expelled for “formalistic” manifestations in painting.
During his studies, A. Tikhomirov met R. Falk, which turned into friendly relations. R. Falk spoke with approval about the works of the young artist - landscapes and still lifes in the tradition of Russian impressionism, noting that A. Tikhomirov has a “French eye” in painting.
After R. Falk’s invitation to paint a sketch from the window of his studio, A. Tikhomirov often visited the artist, they found many points of contact caused by the similarity of views on the problems of creativity.
Among A. Tikhomirov’s friends were the artists I. M. Ilyin, E. Simkin, S. Adlivankin, A. Labas, A. Gluskin, B. Otarov, B. Pinkhasovich, I. Drize, B. Talberg, A. Peredny, who wrote portrait of the artist.
After being expelled from the Surikov Institute, A. Tikhomirov worked for some time as a free artist.
In 1950-76. - in Moscow at the Combine of Monumental and Decorative Arts.
Participated in festive decorations in Moscow, for a number of years he decorated the State Library named after. V.I. Lenin.
Together with the artist I.M. Ilyin, he painted a monumental portrait of V.I. Lenin for the facade of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, measuring 42 x 22 m, for which he was awarded a gold medal at the exhibition of visual propaganda at VDNKh.
According to art critic V. A. Matveev, the artist’s work can be divided into three stages:
- impressionistic (1940-50s),
- Fauvist (1960s),
- new classical (neoclassical) style, starting in the 1970s.
In the works of A. Tikhomirov, deep philosophical overtones and psychological images are combined with a powerful flow of energy, an excellent solution to plastic and color problems.
Eternal themes of good and evil, loneliness and tragedy, the theme of love are reflected in his canvases.
Biblical characters, prisoners and outcasts, persecuted by the crowd, wanderers, madmen - all those who in one way or another opposed themselves to the masses due to the desire for the Other, due to illness or misunderstanding of the crowd, become the heroes of his works.
In the works dedicated to theater and circus, there is a clear reference to W. Shakespeare, whose works the artist loved. The scenes of the feast, the rest of the actors after the performance, depicted on the canvases, are those moments when, tired of the contrived game, the imposed roles, people in masks remain among many of their own kind, each alone with himself. Actors, acrobats, and clowns are depicted with their eyes closed, their gaze turned inward - “turning their eyes with their pupils into the soul.”
What secrets, what attractive abysses, full of vices or fears, are revealed to them?
“The jester is a part of society, he is the one who speaks the truth in person,” noted the artist.
The theme of Petrushka and the Ballerina, inspired by Stravinsky’s ballet “Petrushka,” the theme of unusually strong and tender love, is one of the main ones in A. Tikhomirov’s work: “Petrushka and the Ballerina is a theme that always captivates me.”
Having become interested in symphonic music in his youth, Alexander Dmitrievich carried a passionate love for it throughout his life. While still in Baku, he collected gramophone records, locked himself in a room, and listened to operas and symphonies for a long time. Living in Moscow, he constantly replenished his collection, and music stores, as well as bookstores, were an obligatory point on the walking route, so beloved by the artist.
A subtle connoisseur and connoisseur of classical music, he wrote his canvases while listening to works by Stravinsky, Scriabin, Tchaikovsky, Brahms, Carl Orff, and Beethoven.
The artist’s friends – composers and pianists – called his works “embodied music.”
“When you talk about such a person, you feel how little words mean,” recalls A. Tikhomirov’s close friend, professor at the Russian Academy of Music. Gnessinykh Grigory Borisovich Gordon. - A chance meeting with him, which grew, dare I say, into friendship, became a huge event for me. We became close through our love of music, but if it was my specialty, then for him it was a necessary “counterbalance” to the hard work that took away all my strength. He was completely devoted to his work, destined for him from birth. Painting, and more broadly, art, was the air he breathed.”
Another hobby of the artist was cinema. In Baku, Tikhomirov collected postcards with photographs of film actors. In Moscow, the passion for cinema unexpectedly continued. My wife Natalya worked at the Research Film and Photo Institute, and had the opportunity to watch the latest in foreign cinema. Later, Alexander Dmitrievich will highly value the films of F. Fellini, which will attract him with their psychological and theatrical images, and the impressions from these films will be reflected in the artist’s paintings and graphics.
Art critic Valery Aleksandrovich Matveev says:
“Alexander Dmitrievich set broad human tasks; he seemed to have a presentiment that Russia would face some kind of test, a transitional period in its history. The final cycle of works is typically classic both in composition, in the scope of what is depicted, and in its impact on people.
The artist said: “I want to combine the modern with the classical.” It was an amazingly accurate phrase, I think he achieved it.”
As the artist, art historian, and critic L. F. Dyakonitsyn notes:
“I think that from now on the name of Alexander Dmitrievich Tikhomirov will be more and more known, his work will firmly take its place in art and will serve as a source of courage, culture, and inspiration for other generations of artists.”
Tikhomirov leaves in 1976. retired and continues to embody his painting ideas until the end of his life; the artist’s works are acquired by museums and collectors.
Died in Moscow on March 30, 1995.
Currently, the works of A. D. Tikhomirov are stored in the State Russian Museum, museums of Russia, Azerbaijan, Italy, in private Russian and foreign collections (France, Canada, USA, Australia, etc.).
In the artist’s studio on the wall one could see sheets with quotes that were so in tune with his worldview. On one of the sheets one could read:
Don't trust your roads
To a countless crowd of caresses:
They will break your palace
They will extinguish the covenant altar.
All those who are strong in spirit are alone
Discordant crowds run away,
Some people burn fires on the hills,
The veils of darkness are being torn apart."
A.Blok
Family
The wife of A.D. Tikhomirov is Natalya Anatolyevna Vinogradova (1923-2008). Heating engineer.
Daughter of A.D. Tikhomirov - Anna Aleksandrovna Tikhomirova (1948-2006). Monumental artist.
Alexander Evgenievich Tikhomirov
People's Artist of the Russian Federation.
Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Arts. Professor of BSPU, Chairman of the Amur Regional Organization of the Creative Union of Artists of Russia.
Born in the city of Elektrostal (Moscow region) in 1956.
In 1979 he graduated from the Moscow Art School in Memory of 1905, in 1984 from the Moscow Higher Art School (formerly Stroganov).
Lives and works in Blagoveshchensk, Amur region.
Knight of the Order of Friendship (2013).
Knight of the International Order of Charity degree (2007). Winner of the Diploma of the Prague Academy of Arts and the award of Emperor Rudolf II (2000).
Knight of the Order of the Russian Orthodox Church of St. Andrei Rublev “I degree (2006)
Awarded the “worthy” medal of the Russian Academy of Arts (2012). Gold medal of the Russian Academy of Arts (2013). Silver medal of the Russian Academy of Arts (2011), Gold medal of the Russian Academy of Arts (2005)
Recipient of the “Order of the Planet” in the nomination “Artist of the Year” of the Academy of Arts of the World “New Era” (2011)
Winner of the Vera Prize VII! Moscow International Arts Festival “Tradition and Modernity”
(2013)
Winner of the Grand Prix of the XII International Contemporary Art Fair (2005) in Beijing (PRC). He is an honorary director of the Museum of Russian Art in Harbin (PRC), an honorary member of the Union of Artists of China.
The world is stunned by an artist who stuns himself...
Life on the edge of fate, cruel nostalgia for the present...
The Creator, who does not have a day that belongs to him, the Apostle of the Renaissance palazzo of Orthodoxy...
In the incomprehensible secrets of the intangible, in the magnetism of the spiritual - all the material, similar to Michelangelo's plastic arts, is the creative essence of the artist Alexander Evgenievich Tikhomirov. Based on the place of his life and work, he should undoubtedly be considered an Amur, Far Eastern artist, since the main “search” abode of Alexander Evgenievi-
cha and his creative family - Blagoveshchensk-on-Amur. But in terms of his contribution to culture and art, A.E. Tikhomirov, which is also indisputable, is a figure of Russian and world level. Russia is strong, according to N.M. Karamzin. Russian province. Volga. Dnieper, Yenisei, Angara, Amur... Wonderful masters of Russian culture drew life-giving forces far from the capitals, increasing the glory of the Fatherland!
And yet he was born. the maestro is just near Moscow. in Elektrostal in 1956. In 1984 he graduated from the Moscow Higher Art and Industrial School (formerly Count Stroganov), department of monumental and decorative painting, workshop of G.M. Korzhev. AND…
And then Her Majesty Fate commanded the process. Immediately after graduating from college, a young man, 28 years old. decides to radically change his life. He takes a plane ticket departing to the east, and, following along the 50th parallel on the damned wings of fortune, ten hours later he finds himself on the banks of the Amur, in the border town of Blagoveshchensk. Fame will come to the ambitious rebel and talented painter. when Alexander becomes the author of a new direction in painting and patents it under the name “Window painting”. And great fame will find Tikhomirov after wide recognition of his confessional work at numerous exhibitions. which took place over the past thirty-two years in many large and small cities of Russia and abroad. Alexander Evgenievich first becomes Honored. and then People's Artist of Russia. For his great contribution to Russian culture, in 2014 in the Catherine Hall of the Kremlin, Russian President V.V. Putin will present A.E. Tikhomirov with the Order of Friendship. So they got even: a city called Good News and the Master. First Blagoveshchensk with the artist’s feat of freedom and spiritual achievement, then Okonopis became the calling card of the city on the Amur and Zeya.
The basis, soul and spirit of “Okonopisi” is a deep insight into the essence and meaning of the Russian icon. Russian Orthodoxy. The artist works in the style of religious scenes made in tempera on old wooden shutters. When you look at an artist’s work, associations and direct analogies inevitably “turn on.” In that sense. that the ascetic creativity of Tikhomirov, possessing the power of the eye of spiritual vision. stands on a par with the work of Christian icon painters Andrei Rublev, Dionysius, Theophanes the Greek. True faith. tradition and modernity form the basis. the primary element of A.E. Tikhomirov’s creativity. "A tree for me
this is a leaf. canvas. on which the idea of God rests. The tree itself was created by God. and the artist’s task is to be able to reveal the face of the Saint with just a few strokes, to reveal the secret of creation, to join in with it himself,” says Alexander Evgenievich about his work.
And then the Lord said: “The judgment is that light has come into the world. He who acts truthfully comes to the light. so that his deeds may be evident, because they were done in God.”
The power of Alexander Evgenievich Tikhomirov’s creativity lies precisely in the truth. You can also say - in righteousness, piety, in the power of light and reason.
Blagoveshchensk is one of the oldest cities in the Far East, which turns 160 this year. The history of its foundation is closely connected with Orthodoxy. Our city is proud of the Good News, as it is often called, inspires creative people to create beautiful
paintings, poems and songs. A special place in this creativity is occupied by the unique, inimitable painting of Alexander Tikhomirov, looking into the very soul.
I am sure that it is no coincidence that a graduate of the famous Stroganovka came to our city more than 30 years ago. He went through a long creative path, destined from above. His works are immortalized in history and architecture by mosaic paintings on buildings in Blagoveshchensk. It was here, in our city, thanks to its special spiritual atmosphere and the talent of the master, that a unique painting technique was born - window painting, which has no analogues in the world.
The works of this extraordinary artist, from which the images and faces of Orthodox saints, painted on the panels of shutters, look at us, have long been known both in Russia and abroad and have become the hallmark of our city. Connection with ancestors, love for the Motherland are perceived
It’s especially poignant when you look at the artist’s wooden canvases. His works are a special world. which makes you stop in the fleeting flow of time and think about faith, about the soul.
On behalf of the city residents, I thank the great artist for his great work and unique talent. of which the residents of Blagoveshchensk are proud and look forward to his new works. I am sincerely happy for those who are already familiar with his work and for those who are yet to discover the works from which light emanates.
Mayor of Blagoveshchensk
V.S. Kalita
Big and bright, the artist rushed, soaring once on man-made wings, along the unexplored path of Eternity, which none of the masters of the brush had walked before him in art. Neither in Russia nor abroad. The nature of genius is in striking discoveries of the obvious and is accessible only to a select few. The discovery of A.E. Tikhomirov should be considered deeply Russian in spirit; many critics and art historians rightfully recognize it as a bright, major contribution to the treasury of not only domestic but also world culture.
“Window-painted” icons by A.E. Tikhomirov are in museums and private collections in Russia, Belarus, and Armenia. Canada, Georgia, Italy, Latvia, Turkey, Israel, Austria, Korea, Germany. China, Poland. Finland, Czech Republic, Japan, USA. in France and other countries of the world. The artist’s work was featured in the film The Land at the End of the World.” filmed by German television. In addition to Germany, the film was broadcast to a number of countries in Western Europe. Alexander Evgenievich has letters of gratitude from the Russian Orthodox Church, the Government of the Amur Region, and the Ministry of Culture of Russia.
And he is also a Cavalier of the Order of the Russian Orthodox Church of St. Andrei Rublev, III degree. Knight of the International Order of Charity, III degree. Honorary Director
Museum of Russian Art in Harbin (China), honorary member of the Union of Artists of the People's Republic of China, honorary member of the Krasnoyarsk organization of the All-Russian Union of Artists of Russia.
The canonical priest named Alexander-Amursky “conceived such a picture. so that it hangs without a nail.” And the Master, it seems, succeeded in Blagoveshchensk, for which, from the moment of his birth to the present day, he spent an abyss of fruitless labors and sixty years of life.
ICONS HELPED TO KEEP PEACE AND PEACE INSIDE THE HOUSE - WINDOWS TO THE KINGDOM OF GOD. FACE, FACE, PADS. THERE IS NO HOUSE WITHOUT A WINDOW, NO MAN WITHOUT A FACE, NO ICON WITHOUT A FACE.
I have known People’s Artist of Russia Alexander Tikhomirov for five years, and it feels like I have known this man of amazing spiritual generosity, all-consuming charm and modesty atypical for our time for an entire eternity. Meanwhile, he is the only artist in our country who created an original direction in painting - Okonopis.
Wooden window shutters, trim. Today, perhaps, not every young person will answer what kind of things these are. And there were times when rarely a house in Rus' could do without these carpentry creations. Shutters protected homes from winds and frosts, from evil people and the evil eye. Icons—windows to the Kingdom of God—helped to maintain peace and tranquility inside the house. Face, face, frame. There is no house without a window, no person without a face, no icon without a face. Tikhomirov managed to tie together these seemingly diverse concepts, and then materialize them in his work. In response to my long persuasion to “explain the nature of the discovery,” Alexander once told me his dream:
– I don’t know how my life would have turned out in Moscow, but in 1984 I moved to the city of Blagoveshchensk, Amur Region. He performed mosaic work for numerous domestic and cultural objects in the Far East, and wrote something for himself. One day I stayed late in the workshop and spent the night there. And in a dream a conversation took place with God himself. He addressed me with the following speech: stop sinning and vegetating in vanity. Here is my word for you - look for yourself in spiritual creativity, go to faith, glorifying God and Holy Rus'. Then the decision came to try my hand at icon painting.
The word “icon” is Greek and translated means “image”, “image”. According to legend, the king, Abgar, the ruler of the Syrian city of Edessa, was seriously ill with leprosy. Hearing that the “prophet and wonderworker” Jesus was in Palestine, Abgar sent his court painter Ananias to him with a request to heal him and paint a portrait of Jesus. The painter was unable to make a portrait “due to the radiant shine of his face.” The Lord himself came to the rescue. He took a piece of canvas from the artist, applied it to his face, and a divine image was imprinted on the fabric. Having received the first icon created by God himself, Abgar venerated it and received healing. The name “Savior Not Made by Hands” was assigned to this miraculous image.
The son of a Moscow artist-painter, a graduate of two capital art schools, “In Memory of 1905” and the famous “Stroganovka”, Alexander Tikhomirov was familiar with the traditions and laws of icon painting from his youth. He understood perfectly well: an icon is always a Shrine, no matter in what picturesque manner it is executed. Therefore, the most important thing is to maintain a degree of responsibility for his work to those whom he portrays: the images must be worthy of the Prototypes. No, he did not compete in skill with nature and the Creator. He came up with his own unique visual language - he began to paint icons on old, long-abandoned window shutters. In 1995, Tikhomirov patented a new direction in painting - Okonopis.
“For me, a tree is a canvas on which the idea of God rests,” says Alexander, “it itself was created by the Lord, the artist’s task is to reveal the face of the Creator with a few strokes.” Reveal the mystery of creation and join in with it yourself. The natural internal structure of wood, cracks and roughness caused by wind and rain, completely merge with religious solemnity, mystery and illusory imagination. Outdated wooden window shutters accumulate the spiritual energy of the people who lived in the house. Therefore, the faces of saints depicted on the shutters carry a special energy.
I have heard assessments of Alexander Tikhomirov’s work at various exhibitions and in various audiences: at the Bureyskaya Hydroelectric Power Station, in the State Duma of the Russian Federation, the Diplomatic Academy, and the Cathedral of Christ the Savior. Most people, from ordinary workers to ministers and academicians, agree on one thing - in his works, instead of external beauty, there is always spiritual beauty. Window-painting creations expand the space not in breadth, but in depth. With a keen sense of the structure of the material, Tikhomirov brilliantly uses wood patterns and all its various shades. This is how masterpieces are made. Old shutters seem to open windows to the knowledge of the world, becoming a means of communication with the Almighty, helping each of us find our own way to the temple.
The number of exhibitions of Alexander Tikhomirov's window paintings in our country and abroad is already approaching two and a half hundred. His works are in museums and private collections in the USA, Poland, China, Japan, Germany, Finland, Austria, and the Czech Republic. The People's Artist of Russia donates window paintings not only to museums, but also to enterprises, schools, cosmonauts and artists, officials and deputies, workers and journalists. My house is decorated with one of the most dear gifts to my heart, the work of Alexander Tikhomirov “Nicholas the Wonderworker”.
The difference between the style of an icon and an ordinary painting is the principle of depicting space. The picture is constructed according to the laws of direct perspective. Imagine a drawing of a road - the lines converge at one point located on the horizon. Window painting is characterized by a reverse perspective, where the vanishing point is located not in the depths of the picture plane, but in the person standing in front of it. The parallel lines on the icon do not converge, but, on the contrary, expand in space. However, there is no space itself here. The foreground and background do not have a perspective pictorial, but a semantic meaning. They contain the idea of bringing peace closer
Almighty to our earthly world.
WITH SOUL AND HIGH THOUGHTS
Eyes, windows, window painting- words with the same root.
Window painting - a modern direction of religious painting, the roots of which go back to ancient Russian icon painting, owes its birth to the Blagoveshchensk artist Alexander Tikhomirov, who once lived and studied in Moscow, at the Stroganov School, in the department of monumental and decorative painting in the workshop of G.M. Korzheva. But in the eighties, he suddenly decided to leave for the Far East. That time, not very far from us, was not conducive to the practice of icon painting. However, the artist, as a creative person born in an Orthodox country, carries within himself the rudiments of Orthodox culture. Some unconsciously, some subconsciously, and Tikhomirov consciously. Therefore, since 1984, his main activity has been mosaics, using the technique of which he performs work for numerous domestic and cultural objects in the Far East.
Starting with the execution of mosaics in secular institutions, he purposefully came to the solemnity of church mosaics, turned to religious art, icon painting, which was vividly embodied in the original form - window painting. This term belongs to the artist himself.
The best traditions of Russian icon painting, with its sophistry and inner intimacy, are embodied with dignity in the new direction of modern religious art.
The era of postmodernism allowed secular artists to quite easily master the traditions of Orthodox art in its new forms.
One of these original forms is the art of window painting.
The use of wood texture, outdated window shutters, which accumulated the spiritual human energy of the people who lived in the house, is the creative discovery of Alexander Tikhomirov.
A fairly serious study of the traditions of the Orthodox icon with its canonicity, musicality and rhythmic clarity inspires the works of A. Tikhomirov.
As is known, tradition does not prevent the manifestation of the creative spirit, especially in religious art. The variety of techniques of ancient Russian icon painting violates the idea of the canonical as a kind of embodiment of the principles of artistic mimesis. How many centuries have icon painters worked in the same canon, and how many differences there are between the artistic techniques of such titans as Panselin, Feofan the Greek and Andrei Rublev! Therefore, the birth of a new and, of course, expressive movement in art is a completely natural process.
The end of a tired century, the turn of the millennium - and instead of the appearance of a term with the word “art”, suddenly something original, which grew on Russian, Orthodox soil and is an independent direction of religious art.
The churching of our society that began not so long ago has made it possible to study Orthodox culture in its various aspects. The spread of patriotic literature, religious poetry in the form of chants, and the restoration of destroyed churches led to the emergence of Orthodox Sunday schools and gymnasiums, icon-painting workshops and art galleries.
Face, face, frame.
There is no house without a window, no person without a face, no icon without a face.
One of Alexander Tikhomirov’s personal exhibitions was called “Windows of Rus'”. A very succinct name.
Windows, eyes, eyes. It combines the concept of Holy Rus' and that without which there is nothing sacred in Rus' - Orthodoxy. Windows are the eyes of the house.
In March 1999, an exhibition of A. Tikhomirov took place in the museum of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Moscow for the anniversary of His Holiness Patriarch of Moscow and All Rus' Alexy II “Keep the Orthodox Faith,” where the works of the artist A. Tikhomirov attracted special attention.
Subsequently, their path lay in Jerusalem, to the international exhibition of contemporary Orthodox art. Thus, a road was laid from Holy Rus' to the Holy Land.
Galina MYAGKOVA
In the exhibition halls of the Russian Academy of Arts (Prechistenka, 21) the opening of an exhibition of works by People's Artist of the Russian Federation, corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Arts Alexander Tikhomirov “Okonopis” will take place.
Alexander Tikhomirov is the author of a new direction in painting “Okonopis”, registered with the Russian Society of Authors in 1995. The artist continues the best traditions of the masters of Russian icon painting, but not in form, not in canonical technology, but in the depth of the created and experienced images. “Window painting” are religious scenes made in tempera on old window shutters.
A. Tikhomirov was born in 1956 in Elektrostal, Moscow Region, into the family of an artist. Graduated from the Moscow Art School in Memory of 1905, in 1984 – the department of monumental and decorative painting of the Moscow Higher Art School (formerly Stroganovskoe), the workshop of G. M. Korzhev. For more than thirty years he has lived and worked in Blagoveshchensk, Amur Region. He completed a number of successful monumental projects - mosaics that decorated public buildings in the Far Eastern region. The culmination of the artist’s creative development was the author’s style “Okonopis”, which has no analogues in the world.
The artist’s technique is emphatically based on nature - the main material for his works is natural wood, shutters from old residential buildings. Panels (components of the shutters) are cut out of the removed shutters, and then there is a long creative process of creating the image.
As art critic T. Kochemasova notes, the artist “... when creating an image, takes into account the characteristics of the material - its expressiveness, texture, structure. All these cracks, knots, roughnesses become the basis for the composition, form a special aesthetics, and emphasize the beauty of time, which takes on its flesh in these signs. It is in the intricate play of tree lines that Tikhomirov looks for the key to a new image.”
“A tree for me is a leaf, a canvas on which the idea of God rests. The tree itself was created by God, and the artist’s task is to be able to reveal the face of the Creator with a few strokes, to reveal the secret of creation, to join in with it himself.” A. Tikhomirov.
“Spas”, “Nativity of Christ”, “Annunciation”, “Our Lady of Vladimir”, “St. Nicholas the Wonderworker", "Trinity", "St. George", "St. Great Martyr Panteleimon”, “Sergius of Radonezh” - Tikhomirov’s works are intimate and monumental at the same time. They combine warmth, lyricism and high spirituality, captured in the images and faces of saints. According to art critic N. Anikina, “you need to have enormous human and creative courage to offer your personal interpretation of the sacred canonical images that live in the heart of every Orthodox person.”
The artist’s paintings are marked by special plastic expressiveness and sophistication of the color palette. “Color plays a special role in the experimental space of Tikhomirov’s Okonopis. With its help, the faces finally “appear”, as if they had half-emerged from the space of the heavenly world to us, into the world below... Color does not dominate, does not accentuate, it frees the energy of the image,” writes art critic T. Kochemasova.
The artist’s unique works are well known here in Russia and abroad. They are in museums and private collections in Russia and in many countries around the world, including Israel, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Portugal, Austria, and China. A. Tikhomirov has already exhibited his works three times in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior; there was an exhibition at the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts. Pushkin in Moscow.
Alexander Tikhomirov is a People's Artist of the Russian Federation, a holder of the Order of Friendship, a corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Arts, a member of the Creative Union of Artists of Russia, Chairman of the Board of the AROO TAU of the Russian Federation, Vice-President of the Academy of Arts of the World "New Era", Professor of the Belarusian State Pedagogical University. Winner of the Order of the Russian Orthodox Church “Reverend Andrei Rublev, III degree”, holder of the Order of “Charity”, III degree, was awarded gold medals of the Russian Academy of Arts and the Russian Trade Union of Artists and other awards. Honorary Citizen of the city of Blagoveshchensk.
“The concept of “window painting” came to me in a dream and became the meaning of life for me. This is my author's direction. “Eye”, “window”, “window painting” - the words sound like the same root. The essence of icon painting is that I began to write works on Orthodox themes, using window shutters as material. After all, windows are the eyes of the house. And shutters are a kind of eyelashes that protect the eye from the evil eye, from a stone thrown by an evil hand. The Gospel of Luke says: “If your eye is clean, then your whole body will be light, but if it is bad, then your whole body will be dark.” For me, this is a kind of epigraph to window painting, because I am engaged in religious, spiritual painting. To be very specific, window painting is the same icon painting, only outside the monastery. Each of my works is, in fact, an icon, painted, albeit by a secular, but deeply religious person, which I became as a student, having been secretly baptized (the times were fiercely atheistic) in the Tarasov Church. Since then, my life has been accompanied by fasting and prayer, and the workshop has become my “monastery.” A. Tikhomirov.
