On Wednesday, one of the the best craftsmen military-historical painting of Russia, Pavel Ryzhenko, representative of the Grekov Studio of Military Artists. Pavel Viktorovich was 44 years old. Doctors, naming the cause of death, pronounce one word: stroke.
His work is a true masterpiece. classical school painting. In them, he sang Russian heroes of various eras, Christian motives struggle for the Russian world, the Russian Fatherland. His work and talent made it possible to create not only individual paintings, but also historical dioramas. One of them opens this fall. This is the diorama "Standing on the Ugra", which can be seen in the St. Tikhon's Hermitage of Kaluga. Kaluga - hometown artist.
Paintings by Pavel Ryzhenko: "Malyuta", "Kalka", "Ipatiev House after the regicide", "Victory of Peresvet", "Time of Troubles", "Life of Sergius" and a number of other paintings with a historical focus.
"Neva battle", P. Ryzhenko, 2010, oil on canvas
The artist worked in the style of realism and wrote about his work like this (from Pavel Ryzhenko):
I invite people to take another look at our ambiguous past, full of tragic events in which the great spirit of our people was fully manifested. To understand that we are not a gray mass, not the so-called "electorate", but a people with a wealthy and self-awareness. I would like to believe that I am offering people an alternative to mass, "tinsel" culture, which makes us forget about the main issues of life.
Since September 2013, Pavel Ryzhenko has been actively working with Igor Strelkov (now Commander militia), received important advice from him for the preparation of the canvas "Stokhod", which reflected both the tragedy of the war and the motives for the resurrection of Holy Rus'.
"Stokhod", P. Ryzhenko
A memorial service for Pavel Ryzhenko will be held on Sunday (July 20) at 12:00 pm at the Church of All Saints in Krasnoye Selo, at 7, 2nd Krasnoselsky Lane, Moscow.
The funeral will take place on the same day near Kaluga, at the Zhdamirovsky cemetery (the village of Zhdamirovo) at 17:00.
July 25 at the exhibition Pavel Ryzhenko in Kaluga EXPO Congress, Kaluga, st. Saltykov-Shchedrin, d. 133a, an evening in memory of the Artist will take place.
Eternal memory to the master who sang the image of heroism and holiness in his paintings!
) is a Russian artist, graduate and teacher of the Russian Academy of Painting, a representative of "classical Russian realism".
In 1982 he entered the Moscow secondary art school at . In 1990 - at the Russian Academy of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture, studied with Professor, People's Artist of Russia Ilya Glazunov. In 1996 he defended his thesis with the diploma painting "Kalka".
From 1996 to 1999 - in an independent creative activity. Since 1999 he has been teaching at the Russian Academy of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture at the Department of Composition.
"Wreath."
"OSLYABIA"
Quiet morning pierced by rays warm sun, blossoming apple trees, beehives are visible behind the monk. But the main thing in this small picture is that the monk's name is Oslyabya. And this monk is preparing not to whitewash the trunks, but to give his life - for Christ and for all the Russian people he loves, including for you and me. He leaned his heavy hand on the tree and thought. All life passed before the mind's eye. He, Oslyabya, is ready. He, a warrior of Christ, will nevertheless whiten his apple trees, and then, taking up a sword, will rush into the very hell of the Battle of Kulikovo to beat the enemies of God and lay their corpses in sheaves, and then he himself will be cut down with his great brother Peresvet. 
"Life of Sergius"
"Anthill" 
"Novice"
"Prayer"
" Street cleaner "
What else can touch the soul of a sinner-killer, yesterday's sailor from the battleship "Gangut"? Perhaps the absurdity of the situation and the poignant insecurity of the girl who opened her umbrella over her murdered mother? Why should he shoot the girl? But the brave sailor slid down the wall and sank into the snow. He did not have the strength to raise his rifle, and a powerful hand hung from his knee. He is confused. Will he come to realize what he has done? And what will become of him then?
"Striking the Bells"
"Victory of Peresvet"
"BLESSING OF SERGIUS"
Reverend Sergius blesses Dimitri Ivanovich Donskoy for the Battle of Kulikovo. Which difficult topic for a picture after the canvases already painted before you! I really wanted to capture the essence. Only the essence and nothing more. It seemed to me that the reverend simply gathered these harsh weather-beaten people going to their deaths and embraced them with his heart. And it was so warm and quiet, as if the victory had already been accomplished and everyone returned alive ... As if he, Sergius, did not have to say the names of the heroes aloud at the liturgy at that moment, leaving for Paradise with the field of Kulikov smoking with blood.
And Sergius whispers quietly to Dimitri, but not yet to Donskoy: "You will win!"
"Elder Ambrose"
In the picture "Brotherhood" - Athos monks standing on their prayer guard. I deliberately depicted here two hypostases of water. One water - raging sea waves like passions crashing against a rock - a monastic feat. Other water flows from the source, from under the cross. She is quiet, pure and blessed. She is like living water resurrects souls. This picture is about the meaning of monastic service, which, like a fortress, keeps from the evil of passions. A fortress, behind the walls of which, as in a blessed backwater, the soul of a person flourishes.
"TSAR DECREE. MALYUT SKURATOV"
"The King's Silence"
Silent and praying Great Sovereign All Rus' Ivan Vasilyevich the Terrible. Grozny is for traitors to the holy monarchical idea, which united the gigantic Kingdom accumulated in space. He is silent and, like a Christian, does not defend himself, does not justify himself, but in the calm grandeur of his duty, with humility and strength, he mentally sums up his life. Quiet, no fuss. In the depths of your soul cell.
Can we, each of us, remember and evaluate our path in the way that our great Fathers, Russian sovereigns, could do, combining in themselves the whole burden of royal service with monastic work.
"Photo for memory"
"ALEXANDROVSKY PALACE"
"Farewell to the convoy"
"
Royal epaulettes"
"Unspeakable Light"
"Neva battle"
"Kulikovo field. Standing on the bones"
"TIME OF TROUBLES"
In the very title of the picture, I laid the answer.
“There is cowardice, treachery and deceit all around,” said Saint Nicholas II of his time. We can say the same about our time and add a lot more to the words of the passion-bearing emperor. There is something to be discouraged about.
It seems that the same thoughts visited the Russian people during the Polish invasion. Orphaned children sobbed, sin and its consequences - pestilence, famine and wars - then bled the Motherland. But the Russian people found a way out - they turned to repentance. And like a child, the Lord pressed the Russian people to his chest. Forgave, consoled, again put on stronger legs.
Remembering then Time of Troubles, let us turn to the present, but not in despondency, but in the active correction of each of his life.
"Easter in Paris"
"Man's Destiny"
"Alexander Nevskiy"
Pavel Ryzhenko
“Mentally addressing the reader, I immediately want to apologize to him for the need to tell about myself, since my biography is completely banal and there is nothing unusual in it. I was born in the not so distant 1970 in Kaluga. stagnation". For me, the seventies are the joy of communicating with my parents who love me, my grandmother, whom I still consider almost a saint to this day, my friends in the yard .... Then everything was different, and most importantly, people were different. For some reason I remember the old people especially well (almost all of them fought or went through a war. These old people surrounded us in the yard, knocked dominoes, looked affectionately at our games and almost never closed the doors of their modest dwellings in modern times. I remember somehow went to the apartment of his friend, who was not at home. His mother, Izolda Irinarkhovna, and grandmother, not at all surprised at my appearance in the kitchen, immediately seated me to dinner. I did not want to eat, but it was inconvenient to refuse. above the table is a reproduction from a painting by Poussin, in which the ancient Romans celebrated some event, and for some reason one of them threw himself on the sword ... These memories are very important to me. More important than dry reports, like reports from the front - was born, studied, served, entered, comprehended the secrets of creativity, became recognized, successful and further and further. This is for me the Motherland, bright, quiet, full of love which many have forgotten and many have not.
After entering the Moscow Art School in 1981, I found for myself new world odors. Now to the honey-bitter world watercolor paints flavor mixed in oil paints, from which to this day I can not wean, having absorbed it to the roots of my hair. Brave world Tretyakov Gallery, the dampness of the old streets of Zamoskvorechye, the brown sky over Moscow, when, leaning against the icy glass, I looked at the red flag over the building Supreme Council... All this was then mixed up in the mind of the boy, and only at the age of 18, having entered the army and found myself in a completely different world, I realized that my path is not a search for what I have not lost, but the path given to me, the path painter.
The nineties were the years of my study at the Academy, it was throwing, searching for faith, answers to questions, these were meetings with people completely new to me - priests. The first serious thoughts about the purpose of creativity arose precisely then, at the Academy of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture, in which I was lucky enough to “ferment”. My classmates, like me, were imbued with communication with the great teacher, artist, warrior - Ilya Sergeevich Glazunov. I remember the delight that first seized me in the halls of the Hermitage in front of the paintings of Rembrandt, Van Dyck, Vermeer ... It seemed that all these great masters were present here, next to me. I felt the breath of living history, the greatness of powerful empires - Byzantium, Rome, Russian Empire. I felt the coolness of the Sinai desert and the smell of gunpowder smoke over Borodino, the stern faces of Russian warriors, fearless and invincible, rose before me.
Every person, and especially a Russian, reaches out in the depths and secrets of his heart to the light—Christ. Faith in Christ came to me very late, but, believing, I wanted to run after him, hoping someday to get closer to this light. It is difficult for me to write about this, there are no words to clearly express my thoughts, but I need to say about the people who are dead and alive, who are the bearers of the faith and spirit of the Russian Empire. And say on the canvas because it's my duty to great truth Rus'. The debt of a not completely broken resident of the metropolis, who, through the outlines modern houses, sees through the smog of the Third Ring how again and again these strict and loving faces of our ancestors, who shed their sweat and blood for Christ and for each of us, appear.
Approaching the boundary of my life, the boundary that the great Pushkin could not cross, at which many stopped, I ask myself a question of questions: whom did I serve? To whom, and not to what, and in general, what is art?
I hope that my paintings will awaken the genetic memory of my contemporaries, pride in their Fatherland, and perhaps help the viewer find the only right path for themselves. And then - I will be happy with the duty fulfilled.
Pavel Ryzhenko
On July 16, 2014, the Russian world suffered an irreparable loss - one of the the greatest creators 20th century - the artist Pavel Ryzhenko, whose cause of death - a stroke - in the twentieth century is predominant among young talented people.
Pavel Ryzhenko - a brilliant creator of historical composition
In the vastness of Europe modern world very hard to find talented artist working in style classical realism. The nature of such a creator must be revealed to match the era - contradictory in its revolutionary striving for development and simultaneous passive inaction. It is because of this sinful inaction, which carries contented despondency, that the genius of Russian realism grew - Pavel Ryzhenko, whose paintings were painted exclusively in this classical style.
The artist lived a short but extremely fruitful life, being an icon of God's chosen creator and a role model for artists of realistic traditions. The death of Pavel Ryzhenko marked the final transition contemporary art from the channel of realism to the framework of avant-garde, the departure of the classical canons of construction and color arrangement of the composition from the area visual arts into the expressive swimming of the futuristic brevity of the idea and the straightforwardness of the compositional image.
Biographical note
Pavel Ryzhenko, whose biography does not differ from several hundred similar biographies of artists, anticipating the interest of fans in this topic, left several notes about his past.
The future artist was born in 1970, in the city of Kaluga. In his autobiographical texts, Pavel Ryzhenko, anticipating how much his fans would be interested in his biography, recalled that his childhood was completely and completely filled with joy from communicating with his grandmother and mother. creative way was started by Pavel Viktorovich not by chance - from the very early years he was characterized by quickness of mind and an excellent memory: "This is for me the Motherland, bright, quiet, full of love, which many have forgotten, and many have not."
Since 1988, Pavel has been a graduate of the Moscow Surikov Institute. He went to the army, where, according to him, he already clearly realized his vocation in painting. After her, since 1990, he studied at the Russian Academy of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture, where his teacher was a professor, folk artist Russia I. S. Glazunov.
Pavel Ryzhenko
Since 1997, after in 1996, Pavel Ryzhenko begins an active pedagogical activity at the Department of Architecture, and then restoration, and even later - the composition of the native academy. There he taught until his death. Pavel Ryzhenko is an artist whose cause of death was the result of a fruitful creative activity.
Features of the spiritual content of the composition
Pavel Viktorovich Ryzhenko was instantly glorified as a genius on an all-Russian scale after defending his thesis- canvases "Kalka", where the semantic center of the composition is the figure of Prince Mstislav the Old, tied with ropes, proudly standing opposite the Mongol governor resting after the battle. Pavel Ryzhenko, whose paintings are filled with this inflexible, honest, but simple and humble character, showed the features of the Russian people in the best possible way.
The artist is a preacher of the divine idea
The artist always spoke very openly about his spiritual and practical quest. Get on the path of gratitude Orthodox artist, immersing the viewer in his art beautiful world the earth inspired by God and the Russian nation as a whole, according to him, it was his studies at the academy and acquaintance with the priests that helped him. He idolized the Orthodox national idea and involuntarily became its mouthpiece, the gospel. "Oslyabya", "Blessing of Sergius", "Victory of Peresvet", "Prayer of Peresvet" - in all these images, with their unshakable calmness and prudence, the image of a holy man is invisibly present, not at all similar to the canonical icon-painting image. Paul himself explained this feature of his images by the fact that he considers classical Orthodox iconography to be a monstrous hybrid of Eastern and Byzantine painting, with their European standards and manner of writing, and not original Russian cult painting.
Pavel Ryzhenko collaborated a lot with monasteries and high clergy, writing religious paintings and portraits for them. His latest work- diorama The customer was the Kaluga St. Tikhon Hermitage. Unfortunately, Pavel Ryzhenko, an artist whose cause of death made the Russian world shudder with its suddenness, was unable to attend its opening.
Pavel Ryzhenko and his paintings in the historical genre of painting
Throughout his life, radiating his son's love for his homeland with all his heart and consciousness and filling every stroke and every brushstroke on his canvases with this love, Pavel Ryzhenko completely and completely "impregnated" his paintings of unprecedented power with greatness. It was the greatness of the Russian Spirit, enclosed in the images of the hero Peresvet, in the majestic but submissive pose of Emperor Nicholas II, the monumental tragic grandeur of the battles of the past and sunshine monastery apiaries.
As a master of battle scenes, the composition and color scheme of which was imbued with the idea of the Divine battle with Darkness, the artist took an active part in military-patriotic actions on the territory of Russia. He was a member of the M. B. Grekov Studio of Military Artists as one of the leading master painters, and the first published information that Pavel Ryzhenko had died, the cause of death, made public a few days later, was reported to the press by the Department of Culture of the Ministry of Defense .
During the political upheaval in the spring of 2014 in Ukraine, Pavel Ryzhenko repeatedly expressed his support for the emerging states of Novorossia. In addition, in the process of writing his canvas "Stokhod", the artist continuously consulted with Igor Ivanovich Strelkov about the uniform of Russian officers and became very friendly with him, even capturing him on the canvas in the main triangle of the composition. Upon learning that Pavel Ryzhenko, whose cause of death directly depended on enormous mental activity, had died, Strelkov wrote: “I am sorry. The man was bright. When I consulted him, he already complained that his hands were going numb.”
People's Artist
Pavel Ryzhenko sincerely believed in an enlightened, morally pure and spiritually rich Russia, wholeheartedly rooted for the formation of Novorossia and its political arrangement in line with the Russian state, while always remaining a monarchist. A huge number of his paintings, created since the early 1990s, are dedicated to the Battle of Kulikovo, the era of Nicholas II, as well as the First World War. In his workshop there were six finished dioramas, which were periodically put forward for exhibitions.
Parting words to descendants
When Pavel Ryzhenko died, the cause of death was not immediately announced. Only a few days later it became known that due to the tense professional activity he had a stroke.
The artist was buried at the Zhdamirov cemetery in the village of the same name near Kaluga.
During his lifetime, he was a very progressively oriented person, an adherent of Orthodox thought as a historically changing content. human being, the essence of which can be excellently reflected in the principles of classical pictorial realism.
Yesterday, a talented Russian painter and teacher suddenly died of a stroke. Pavel Viktorovich Ryzhenko. He was only 44 years old.
Pavel Ryzhenko is known as the author of monumental paintings and dioramas affecting tragic themes medieval Russian history and Orthodoxy, the events of the First World War and the Great Patriotic War, the abdication and death of the family of the latter Russian emperor Nicholas II. For my short life Pavel Ryzhenko managed to write a huge number of works, in which he also showed himself as a philosopher who studies the problems moral choice a person in difficult life circumstances, both as a historian and as a brave and independent artist.
Pavel Viktorovich Ryzhenko was born in 1970 in Kaluga. In 1982 he entered the Moscow Art School at the Surikov Institute, after which he served in the army for two years. In 1990 he entered Russian academy painting, sculpture and architecture, studied at the department of Ilya Sergeevich Glazunov. In 1996 he defended his diploma painting "Kalka". For more than ten years he taught at the Glazunov Academy (first in the department of architecture, then in restoration, then in composition), an associate professor of painting. He worked in the "Studio of military artists named after M. B. Grekov", the author of a large-scale diorama "Operation" Bagration "in Minsk (who does not know: this is an operation to liberate Belarus from the Nazi invaders in 1944). A few years ago, Pavel Ryzhenko almost prophetically wrote: Approaching the boundary of my life, the boundary that the great Pushkin could not cross, at which many stopped, I ask myself a question of questions: whom did I serve? To whom, and not to what, and in general, what is art? I hope that my paintings will awaken the genetic memory of my contemporaries, pride in their Fatherland, and perhaps help the viewer find the only right path for themselves. And then - I'll be happy duty done».
The preliminary cause of the artist's death is a stroke, he died on Wednesday in Moscow.Representative of "classical Russian realism", master historical picture Pavel Viktorovich Ryzhenko created many large-scale paintings dedicated to the Battle of Kulikovo, Sergius of Radonezh, the First World War, the era of Nicholas II. Russian heroes and Orthodox moral ideals were embodied in his works.
"I invite people to take another look at our ambiguous past, full of tragic events, in which the great spirit of our people was fully manifested. To understand that we are not a gray mass, not the so-called "electorate", but a people with rich history and self-awareness. I would like to believe that I offer people an alternative to mass, "tinsel" culture, which makes us forget about the main issues of life. "(Pavel Ryzhenko)
Pavel Ryzhenko about Igor Strelkov...
the 14 th of July
2014
For three months now, Novorossia has been waging war - an outpost Great Russia. As I understand, the best people Russia, not in words, but in deeds filled with courage, prove to the whole world that the miracle of the resurrection of Great Holy Rus' is not a myth. Here I would like to tell a story that happened to me a year ago.
I started work on the painting "Stokhod" in September 2013. Faced with many problems related to the transfer of the subtleties of the form of the Russian Imperial Guard. I shared these problems with my friend Anatoly.
"My friend, I will send my friend to you, who knows everything about the uniform of the Russian army. Wait in a couple of days!" Anatoly said.
And these days flew by like a minute. On one of the September days, a man who introduced himself simply - Igor, comes into my workshop.
I was immediately struck by his appearance. Outwardly, such a person could be confused in the crowd, he did not stand out in any way. The modesty and everydayness of his clothes were somewhat reminiscent of the uniform of a researcher from a scientific research institute of the 80s. A collared shirt over a cheap sweater, buttoned up to the last button, gray trousers. The fulcrum so valued in Moscow, i.e. shoes, did not betray a hidden millionaire in him. Only the face made such an impression on me that for a moment I was speechless. It was the real face of a Russian officer. I emphasize Russian! Not Soviet and not Russian, but Russian!
open forehead, short haircut, slightly sad eyes, thinness and at the same time roundness of the lower part of the face. Small, evenly trimmed, sleek mustache.
The speech is firm, very clear, but at the same time somehow shy. In general, the combination of shyness and firmness, slight burriness, the complete absence of the materka, so fashionable now, rounded off this portrait into the image of some kind of alien who happened to be in the center of Moscow.
I became friends with Igor. We worked together on the painting "Stokhod". I am like an artist, He is like a form consultant...
ARTIST ON THE SCALES OF ETERNITY
Pavel Ryzhenko is amazing historical painter. He is distinguished by his ability to draw (in our crazy time only a few have this skill, which is normal for an artist, so you have to specify it on purpose), exceptional art in building a plot, ideas, meta-meaning of a picture, an amazing ability to write out details, love for things and the ability to characterize a situation through a thing, subtle humor, built on the game of man with nature (“Anthill”, a cat at the feet of Alexei Mikhailovich, a hedgehog at the hand of Peresvet on the eve of the Battle of Kulikovo) ... Someone said that Ryzhenko is Semiradsky, Surikov, Vasnetsov and Nesterov "in one bottle." Indeed, already what was created by the artist in previous years is enough to secure a place for him in the first row of the geniuses of Russian painting...
And this place would be all the more outstanding because Ryzhenko is a rare sincerely Orthodox and sincerely patriotic among Russian historical realists, many of whom once used their talent rather to destroy and humiliate Russian history, rather than to create it. So the expectations from this meeting with the art of a wonderful painter were great ...
"Last Judgment"Ryzhenko is a real revolution in Russian art. He was shocked by the fact that the artist expressed my thoughts about God and Russia, too, and by how skillfully and boldly it was done.
"The Last Judgment" is a painting of the western wall for cathedral Yakutsk, written with the blessing of Zosima, Bishop of Yakutsk and Lena. Ryzhenko says that he immediately warned that he would not be able to write a "canonical" work in the sense of reproducing ancient samples. But the lord said that the artist should not doubt - modern man it is more important to see the icon in actual forms, the main thing is that the patristic spirit be preserved. It is joyful to hear today about such hierarchs who choose the path of genuine actual conservatism - conservatism and patriotism in the spirit with the courage of form, a way of conveying the Truth to people.
And Ryzhenko brilliantly fulfilled the blessing, although he survived many temptations, including the illness that almost carried him to the grave. The devil had something to fight against - unbelief, Russophobia in all its forms from liberal to Hitlerist, lukewarmness and "broad Christianity" dealt a terrible blow. “The Last Judgment” is a picture in the tradition of such works of Russian icon painting as “The Militant Church” - an eternal content clothed in a topical political form, which, precisely because of this, becomes not just political. In this icon, a beautiful formula that I somehow came across on the Internet: "holding the Last Judgment in the interests of the Russian people" was cast into a magnificent iconic image.
The Lord and the apostles judge the world. Pray before the Lord Mother of God and John the Baptist. To the right and to the left of Him is the host of heaven. To the left of Christ are the legions of Constantine, ancient martyrs and ancient Russian knights. On the right is the Christ-loving Army of Russia, where there was a place for the soldiers of the First World War and the paratroopers of the Second Chechen War.
In the center of the composition is a sinner, in whose image Ryzhenko portrayed himself. He looks in horror at the scales in the hands of an angel, on which the demonic cup clearly outweighs the angelic cup, the demons pull it down with hooks. But he does not see that an angel raises his scroll above his head, which can outweigh all the demonic ones.
At the right hand of the Lord (that is, to the left of the viewer), the general resurrection of the dead takes place, Holy Rus' triumphs, overshadowed by a tent church. Russian people rise from the graves different eras and joyfully greet each other - they are heading to paradise in a large stream, led by the Royal Martyrs and Father Seraphim - in this stream you can see both Suvorov and the young sailor from the Kursk. And a little lower - a child prays at a grave with a star ... the grave is not an atheist and an atheist, but a warrior who died for his Motherland in the Great Patriotic War, the martyr Yevgeny Rodionov raises his cross, on his throat there are traces of the murder of him by the enemies of God. And next to him rises from the grave, overshadowing himself sign of the cross honored veteran who has some similarities with I.V. Kurchatov, father of the Russian bomb. The angel points to the Tsar Martyr coming to Christ to a certain shaven-headed, long-bearded man of oriental appearance, who is also present in the paintings of Ryzhenko's royal cycle.
Oshuya of the Lord (that is, to our right) - an ancient serpent descends there (canonical for the Orthodox iconography of the Last Judgment - in general, Ryzhenko observes the canon quite accurately in the sense of the presence of obligatory images and figures), the ruins of the new Babylon are blazing there - the skyscrapers of America, along with its Statue Freedom, her Arlington Cemetery and the Apache helicopter, which is powerlessly trying to resist the Angel with the Monogram of Christ on the shield. Downstairs, a renaissance alchemist, a proud Pharisee, a suicide, a glamorous pederast with bucks on his chest, and other enemies of God are resurrected only to find themselves in Gehenna. If people rise from the graves with a cross on Odesnaya, then they rise from different “secular” graves on the left.
Especially shocking is the image of a harlot whose breasts are smeared with blood from the touches of the children she killed in the womb. Here the artist found a subtle detail (Ryzhenko is a master of a very deep detail) to express not just an abstract idea of fornication, but an extremely relevant idea - the harlot is dressed in a business suit and has a badge on her chest, that is, this is a careerist who had abortions so that children would not interfere her success...
There is no "Glazunovism" in the picture in the sense in which this expression was launched in order to find fault with all Russian patriotic painting. Ryzhenko is a student of Glazunov, but goes further than the teacher in the synthesis of brilliant painting technique and deep, truly Russian content. This is not a glossy set of "full-face" pictures glued together, but a strictly adjusted, coherent, coordinated composition, subordinated to one common idea, each part is executed with Ryzhenko's inherent fantastic pictorial skill, but all together they "gather", do not fall apart into fragments. In this sense, Ryzhenko's "Last Judgment" is read by our contemporary as a whole even better than the ancient icons, the language of which is incomprehensible to the majority.
And Ryzhenko knows how to make the incomprehensible understandable without dropping the level and without losing depth. In two rather thick books of reviews there are enthusiastic thanks not only from pensioners and "professional patriots". “Cool”, “cool”, “author zhzhosh!”, “I liked it” - they sign by putting emoticons “Katya from 6 B” and even “Kolya from 3rd grade”. The schoolchildren who have been here, for whom, it would seem, there is no hope, are by no means deaf to such a real, unsentimental and cunning art. Art, which, by the way, is not afraid to be “beautiful”.
This is generally an amazing strategic advantage. modern Russia. We still know how to do things that have already been completely destroyed in the West. Bishop Hilarion (Alfeev) of Vienna shook music world, creating the magnificent Matthew Passion, standing at the level of the best examples of the classical musical tradition. Ryzhenko with his works not only restores, but also "reinstalls" the great Russian painting, healing it from the intellectual fig in his pocket. Orthodoxy, Autocracy and Nationality are the theme of his paintings without ambiguity and doublethink. But at the same time, Ryzhenko is not an artist of a "subculture", who believes that good intentions will fully atone for artistic slovenliness. This is the Artist. Artist for whatever Hamburg account. And it remains to congratulate Russia on the birth of the Artist.
By the way, a gratifying fact is how it turned out to be possible at all that such a bold and “politically incorrect” exposition became the central event of the official exhibition in the Manege. We owe this to the new first lady, Svetlana Medvedeva. “If it were not for Svetlana Vladimirovna, my works would not have been at this exhibition,” Ryzhenko shared with the press. “It is almost impossible for artists to break into large areas on their own. And now thousands of people will be able to see my work.” This fact gave me hope. Maybe the liberals are rubbing their hands like that in vain, expecting a “new reign” and hoping that it will become the era of “perestroika”.
And now, on the road from Belarus, an obituary, which, I hope, will soon see the light of day in Izvestia, has rattled, jumping over potholes:
Ryzhenko made his debut in 1996 with Kalka, dedicated to one of the worst military defeats in Russian history. Proud winner of Subudai Ra looks at the bound, tormented, but not subjugated Russian prince, humbly accepting his martyr's cross as a retribution for pride and princely strife. In the background is a pyramid built from the bodies of Russian captives for feasting conquerors. The composition is carefully built, every detail of the costume and landscape is written out. The picture can be looked at for hours.
The Russian Middle Ages and its battles become one of the most important in the artist's work. A real masterpiece is "The Victory of Peresvet" (2005), where, after the era of Soviet secularization, the true image of the hero is recreated - a humble monk with the blessing of St. Sergius accepting a mortal battle without being distracted from mental prayer. On the face of Peresvet, who crushed the enemy, there is neither rage nor jubilation, only a feeling of complete obedience.
On the contrary, the attack of the ambush regiment in the Field of Kulikovo (2005) is full of pressure, dynamics and triumph. The image of a difficult victory. The blow of the squad at the moment of complete exhaustion of the Russian rati literally swept the Tatars and Genoese, united in a bizarre west-east campaign against Rus'.
Ryzhenko is a very anti-revolutionary and anti-war artist - which may seem like a paradox for a battle painter. For him, war is a break in a quiet and prayerful, peaceful life filled with simple joys and beautiful things. Evil and confusion break into this world to kill and torture people and break things. A feat is needed to stop evil. War is needed so that everyone is not killed. And a revolution is madness, a haze from which you need to wake up.
By the way, a day has passed since the death. Has anyone heard of the condolences of the president and the prime minister, who so hastily mourned Novodvorskaya? Or if not a smelly Russophobe, but a creator of Russian beauty, then he didn’t come out with a rank?
