ALEXEYEV:
Russian landscape and imagination
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| A View from the Palace Embankment of the Petropavlovsk Fortress in St Petersburg. 1794 |
It was yesterday when this person looked at a painting made by a Russian artist named Feodor Alexeyev, an it is romantically classical as it visualises a century Russia hath passed to.
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| Red Square in Moscow |
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| A view of the Moscow Kremlin and the Kamenny Bridge, Undated |
As inspired by the works of famous French and Italian landscape painters, of studying both in Sankt Peterburg and in Europe, Alexeyev created a series of landscape paintings all based on Russian scenes and further developed fusion of Western and Slavic tastes, as all scenes shown are romantic, slavic and realistic as it based on its century Alexeyev hath lived.
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| A View from the Ressurection Gates in Moscow, 1811 |
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| A view of the Mikhailovsky Palace and Konnetablya Square in Petersburg. circa 1800 |
So nice to see such works as it catches the viewer's imagination. To a writer, these works meant something that perhaps also compels to write and draw, since some of my works are somewhat based on these settings such as from Red Square or Sankt Peterburg, Alexeyev's romanticism creates an idea that people would call it as "imagination", the way how directors or writers tend to create an image, idea of a classical setting was.
Personally, he just "stumbled" in a site showing paintings made by him. The works are rather common into my eyes whilst others think of Russian art either the Icons bearing the blessed virgin, Churches with onion shaped domes, to AgitProp and Stalinist architecture. But in these works show how classical Russia was: "Wintry," "Formal," "Sacred" and perhaps "Serene," while others may tend to call it "Dirty" as cities during those times somehow tend to call it "unsanitary"-such as horse poop in the streets and unpaved roads contrary to the paintings Alexeyev hath done.
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| Cathedral Square in Moscow Kremlin, Undated |
Quite weird so to think in seeing such paintings nowadays. Few for sure appreciated Alexeyev or Jacques-Louis David as it features classical or romanticised settings and individuals extolling the greatness of the past. This writer obviously quite inspired though to continue writing and drawing scenes somewhat similar to these, that perhaps made "as a reaction" to the norms that others think of as "degenerated." Most tend to be against the system, but within it, few dared to counter the system creatively as most used these merely as an outlet, or a means to escape as this writer once tend to.
Sorry to say about this writer's snippet of his life, but yes, like Alexeyev or Lewis Caroll, got indulged with imagination and outburst of feeling as it writes and draws providing outlets from the outside world to the world of ceaseless imagination, that in other words, Escapism out of reality.