Artist Dmitry Kosmin was born in Siberia. He repeatedly represented its nature in his works, painting taiga, mountain ridges, full-flowing rivers and lakes. He also painted industrial landscapes of cities, factories, and power plants that were built in Siberia in Soviet times. A whole series of his works is dedicated to the Krasnoyarsk hydroelectric station, which was built on the Yenisei, near the city of Divnogorsk. The power plant was fully launched in 1971.

The artist depicted the power plant at the final stages of its construction, showing the dam that blocks the river, with tall buildings of the hydroelectric power station behind it. In the background, Kosmin painted the spurs of the East Sayan Range.

The artist intentionally raised the horizon line and painted the view of the hydroelectric power station from above. From this perspective, the huge power plant against the backdrop of majestic mountains fits into the landscape, in harmony with nature, instead of becoming the dominant industrial element

The artist chose a restrained palette for this work, combining blue-green and terracotta shades with smooth color gradients. The landscape looks more lively thanks to the contrasting details, such as yellow walls of the hydroelectric power station and purple mountains. The dam looks brightly lit, while the background is slightly shaded compared to it. The smooth lines of the mountains and the Yenisei waves make the picture look more dynamic.

When painting Krasnoyarsk Hydroelectric Power Station, the artist embodied one of the main ideas in his creative heritage, the close relationship between nature and people who get to use its riches thanks to their hard work.

Dmitry Kosmin was born in Omsk in 1928. When the war began, he volunteered for the front and fought until victory. After the military service, he entered the Moscow Art College in memory of 1905, and graduated in 1952. Since that time, paintings by Kosmin have been exhibited more than a few times in galleries in the USSR, Italy, Japan, and Holland. The artist also organized five solo exhibitions. In 2000, Dmitry Kosmin was awarded the title of People’s Artist of Russia.

Kosmin mostly created landscapes, painting the vastness of Siberian taiga, the fields of the Kuban, or mountains and deserts of Central Asia. In addition to realistic details, he faithfully conveyed the interplay of light and shadow, so that each of his works had its own special color scheme.

At present, paintings by Dmitry Kosmin are included in the collections of the Tretyakov Gallery and other museums in Russia, in the Italian Galleria Pirra, and in private collections of Japanese, French, and British art lovers.