As an artist, Yakut master Arthur Vasiliev was forming in the second half of the 1980s, during an era of ‘perestroika’. The author paints in the genre of easel painting – he creates pictures on the easel and they are conceived as individual, independent artworks. In his art, the artist often addresses the theme of interaction of different generations at the turn of the century.
Vasiliev created the painting ‘Carriers of Light’ in 1999, and first presented it to public at the exhibition Yakut grads of the Imperial Russian Academy of Arts. He depicted mixed-age groups of people – old women, a man and a child.
Vasiliev addressed the theme of generations continuity and combined on canvas two ‘ages’ – childhood and old ages. In order to concentrate the viewer’s attention on people’s faces, the artist used flat black background and placed figures in a close-up. Calm and pacified look of the adults is directed forward, into the unknown. And only the boy turned his head round and he is looking at the viewer carefully.
The main light source is located outside the canvas, but the personages are holding candles in their hands, which additionally light up their faces. The palette of ‘Carriers of Light’ consists of deep, saturated colours and is amazingly wealthy in tonal designs. The artist achieved subtle play of colours with the help of glazing – it is a special painting technique in which several layers of translucent paints are applied to the main colour from above.
The author filled picture with metaphorical images: the candle symbolises the lonely human soul and fleetingness of life which is easy to extinguish. And the child typifies simplicity, purity, sincerity. According to Yakut mythology, the child is standing as if on the lines of sacral and real time and space. Thus, the boy’s look unites viewers with what is happening in the picture and allows to join in some kind of ritual action.
Vasiliev is considered to be a long-established master with his own individual manner of painting. His artworks are always distinguished by aspiration to active search of deep meaning. The canvas “Carriers of Light” completes the cycle of the painte’s artworks in which he was looking for philosophical interpretation of the meaning of light. In the author’s paintings, it mirrors the way of life and the candle represents the human destiny.
