Filipp Malyavin (October 22, 1869, Kazanka village, Samara province - December 23, 1940, Nice) is one of the brightest and most distinctive artists of the late 19th - early 20th centuries. His work embodied in the inexhaustible strength and exceptional beauty of the Russian people. The numerous images of peasant ‘women’ and ‘minds’ brought the artist worldwide fame and defined him as a master of essentially a single theme, ‘one wonderful, big and true plot.’ The theme of folk life was developed in the work of many contemporaries of Malyavin: Sergey Korovin, Andrey Ryabushkin, Zinaida Serebryakova, Abram Arkhipov. In the context of their time, they tried to embody the image of the Russian peasantry not as a ‘poor and suffering class’, but as a great source of life, concealing the wealth of centuries.
It was Malyavin who managed to discover in this genre previously unprecedented pictorial and figurative hyperboles. The monumental size of the canvases, the large figures, the tension of color contrasts, the colorful carousel of strokes, everything in Malyavin’s canvases is brought to the edge, beyond which the picturesque expression threatens to turn into a real element.
Malyavin found his extraordinary scope, vitality and energy in female images. “It was necessary, of course, to study and take not “ladies”, but “women”, hence the plot and name of “Baba” (Woman) is the eternal essence of Russians… This is a scheme and prototype, primordial and eternal…’ - wrote Vasily Rozanov, Russian writer and philosopher.
In Malyavin’s female round dance, the viewer sees essentially ideal collective images. They are involuntarily associated with the splashing joy of the national holiday and the hopped prowess of the Russian peasantry. However, a significant part of them are sketches from nature and female portraits with an individuality and originality.
This is “Baba” from the collection of the Taganrog Art Museum. There is no doubt that a real woman posed for this image. The artist depicted an elegant Russian beauty, chubby, thick-cheeked, ruddy, in a red sarafan, a flowered shirt, with a necklace and a hastily tied scarf with tassels. Every feature of her typical Russian face is unusually expressive: her firm chin line, pursed lips with a hidden smile, a wide nose, and slyly sparkling big kind eyes.
The decorative manner of painting, typical for Malyavin, corresponds to the image. He deliberately monumentalizes all the features of the character, emphasizing the vitality of the image with the vitality and richness of colorful modeling, the materiality of painting, and the decorative brightness of color spots. Inspired by the beauty of his model’s outfit, he literally floods the canvas with stormy streams of color: crimson, purple, red, blue, sunny yellow. The combination of contrasting color and colorful spots enhances the dynamics of the image and becomes its emotional dominant.
It was Malyavin who managed to discover in this genre previously unprecedented pictorial and figurative hyperboles. The monumental size of the canvases, the large figures, the tension of color contrasts, the colorful carousel of strokes, everything in Malyavin’s canvases is brought to the edge, beyond which the picturesque expression threatens to turn into a real element.
Malyavin found his extraordinary scope, vitality and energy in female images. “It was necessary, of course, to study and take not “ladies”, but “women”, hence the plot and name of “Baba” (Woman) is the eternal essence of Russians… This is a scheme and prototype, primordial and eternal…’ - wrote Vasily Rozanov, Russian writer and philosopher.
In Malyavin’s female round dance, the viewer sees essentially ideal collective images. They are involuntarily associated with the splashing joy of the national holiday and the hopped prowess of the Russian peasantry. However, a significant part of them are sketches from nature and female portraits with an individuality and originality.
This is “Baba” from the collection of the Taganrog Art Museum. There is no doubt that a real woman posed for this image. The artist depicted an elegant Russian beauty, chubby, thick-cheeked, ruddy, in a red sarafan, a flowered shirt, with a necklace and a hastily tied scarf with tassels. Every feature of her typical Russian face is unusually expressive: her firm chin line, pursed lips with a hidden smile, a wide nose, and slyly sparkling big kind eyes.
The decorative manner of painting, typical for Malyavin, corresponds to the image. He deliberately monumentalizes all the features of the character, emphasizing the vitality of the image with the vitality and richness of colorful modeling, the materiality of painting, and the decorative brightness of color spots. Inspired by the beauty of his model’s outfit, he literally floods the canvas with stormy streams of color: crimson, purple, red, blue, sunny yellow. The combination of contrasting color and colorful spots enhances the dynamics of the image and becomes its emotional dominant.
