Like many of his contemporaries Nikolai Vasilyevich Shuvalov was interested in the discoveries of new phenomena, and thus the series of works called “Weightlessness” was born. It is composed of paintings of objects like vessels, fruits and flowers suspended above the ground. They are of light blue or bluish-pink transparent tones which gives off a sense of lyricism and intimacy.

The artist said:

The museum presents “Still Life” from the series “Weightlessness”, which the artist created at the turn of the 1980s. The restoration architect Iosif Sheftelevich Shevelev commented on Shuvalov’s series:

Nikolai Shuvalov divided the composition of his painting symmetrically into two parts. The artist arranged the objects in a mirror image and used different color schemes for the two sides. Renaissance painters often built their compositions according to the rules of symmetry. By doing so, they were able to convey a sense of peace, grandeur, and special solemnity.

Symmetry embodies one of the most important laws of Nature — its duality. The existence and consciousness of man is dualistic, as it is formed between spirit and matter, good and evil, soul and body, faith and knowledge, freedom and necessity. People strive to overcome their inherent duality, but are unable to do so, which is why they experience mental anguish, which is reflected in acts of creativity.

In the painting on display, the artist expressed this duality by painting identical objects different colors and the masks split with a vertical line. The mask implies a certain mystery — a desire to hide something behind it, a true motive, which, for example, invariably exudes a special aura of mystery.