A People’s Artist of Russia and veteran of the Great Patriotic War Gennady Alexandrovich Daryin (1922–2012) graduated from the Repin Leningrad Institute of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture in 1951. He studied in the workshop of the People’s Artist of the USSR, Professor Boris Vladimirovich Ioganson.
Gennady Daryin followed the traditions of Russian school of Realism, he did not welcome Cubism and Avant-garde,
Creating a realist picture requires learning and hard work. And talent, of course. And this abstractionism requires nothing of the kind: you grow a beard, make a confident face, and cover up the canvas without looking, and say ‘I see it that way’ at all intersections. No, it is not serious.
The Zavolzhsk Art Gallery houses a painting by the Yaroslavl artist Gennady Alexandrovich Daryin “The Cathedral of St. George in Yuryev-Polsky”. The painting shows one of the most unique churches of Russia in all its beauty. Its design was based on the Cathedral of Saint Demetrius in Vladimir.
The small town of Yuryev-Polsky was founded in 1152 by Prince Yuri Dolgoruky. The patron saint of the prince was George the Victorious; hence, it was decided to build a church in honor of the saint. It was erected in the period from 1230 to 1234 during the rule of Prince Sviatoslav Vsevolodovich on the site of an ancient cathedral.
The entire church was decorated with stone carvings. Plot compositions and individual figures were carved in high relief. Heraldic lions, fantastic beasts, as well as figures of saints were depicted on individual stones at the construction site, and then introduced into the masonry of the wall. After that, they decorated the already finished wall with a carved floral ornament which was also continued on architectural details.
The church began to deteriorate in the 1460s. No one could restore it, as most stone carvers had been killed during the Mongol-Tatar invasion. The secrets of their masonry were lost forever. One of the best architects of the 15th century, Vasili Dmitriyevich Yermolin attempted to restore it, but did not solve the mystery of the stone pattern. Yermolin managed to put some of the stones together, achieving fragments of previous paintings, but most of them could not be placed correctly.
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