Nikolai Vasilievich Soldatov was born in the village of Martovka, in Altai Territory. In 1970 he moved to Mezhdurechensk — which he chose just by looking at the map. He worked as an art teacher in a residential school. In 1974 he decided to work as a coal miner, and was employed at the Raspadskaya mine for 35 years.
Nikolai Soldatov started painting at the age of 14. His first teacher was a neighbor, a retired officer called Alexander Titov. When young Nikolai saw ‘Uncle Sasha’ working on a landscape painting, he stood watching him for two hours, fascinated. He asked his mother to give him a bed sheet that he could paint on, and he made his own brushes out of hairs from a horse’s mane. Later on, the young artist sent off for paints and two sets of brushes from Novosibirsk — at a cost of a hundred roubles. He got up at the crack of dawn to go to the post office to fetch his long-awaited parcel. He was the happiest person in the world. He learned to paint from works by Shishkin, Aivazovsky, and Polenov, and copied Vasnetsov’s historical paintings such as The Duel between Peresvet and Chelubey and The Knight at the Crossroads.
Nikolai Soldatov was a master of landscape painting. In his paintings he vividly depicted the grandeur and striking beauty of the Mountain Shoria, Khakassia and Altai regions of Siberia. He had a gift for expressing the precise mood of each season, the wealth of color and the continually changing appearance of the natural world in his region.
With his brushes he was able to capture any subject: the eerie silence of a birch grove, the scarcely perceptible ripples on the surface of a river, or the play of light and shadow on snow-covered ground. In his art Nikolai Soldatov combined great technical skill with a poetic sensitivity. In all the artist’s works we can feel the breath of life. When people look at his paintings, they ask themselves — “Where is this beautiful place?”
In his painting Morning, the artist depicts a quiet, somnolent lake at dawn. In the foreground is the lake shore, with dense clumps of sedge-grass growing between silt-covered rocks. In the distance we can see the farther shore, half hidden behind a high bush which is silhouetted against the background of a barely visible area of woodland. The rays of the rising sun are shining through the dense morning mist and illuminate the surface of the water. The artist conveys the calmness of the water through the use of tonal gradients — gradual transitions from one color to another. The sunlight intensifies the sense of depth, giving an impression of space and suggesting the reverent joy of this moment on a summer morning. The picture conveys to the viewer a feeling of peace, a rare sense of calm, and an eerie silence and harmony.
The lake which the artist depicts in this painting is situated in an attractive part of the Mountain Shoria region. Many of the lakes in this beautiful region are ancient, and relatively large and deep. In the forests of Mountain Shoria there are many colorful lakes and pools of a striking and rare beauty which leaves a lasting impression on all those who experience it. On a clear day, they have a particularly other-worldly quality. Then the sun’s rays shining like sparks in the blue distance.
Nikolai Soldatov had a special gift for depicting the striking and mysterious beauty of his region.
Nikolai Soldatov started painting at the age of 14. His first teacher was a neighbor, a retired officer called Alexander Titov. When young Nikolai saw ‘Uncle Sasha’ working on a landscape painting, he stood watching him for two hours, fascinated. He asked his mother to give him a bed sheet that he could paint on, and he made his own brushes out of hairs from a horse’s mane. Later on, the young artist sent off for paints and two sets of brushes from Novosibirsk — at a cost of a hundred roubles. He got up at the crack of dawn to go to the post office to fetch his long-awaited parcel. He was the happiest person in the world. He learned to paint from works by Shishkin, Aivazovsky, and Polenov, and copied Vasnetsov’s historical paintings such as The Duel between Peresvet and Chelubey and The Knight at the Crossroads.
Nikolai Soldatov was a master of landscape painting. In his paintings he vividly depicted the grandeur and striking beauty of the Mountain Shoria, Khakassia and Altai regions of Siberia. He had a gift for expressing the precise mood of each season, the wealth of color and the continually changing appearance of the natural world in his region.
With his brushes he was able to capture any subject: the eerie silence of a birch grove, the scarcely perceptible ripples on the surface of a river, or the play of light and shadow on snow-covered ground. In his art Nikolai Soldatov combined great technical skill with a poetic sensitivity. In all the artist’s works we can feel the breath of life. When people look at his paintings, they ask themselves — “Where is this beautiful place?”
In his painting Morning, the artist depicts a quiet, somnolent lake at dawn. In the foreground is the lake shore, with dense clumps of sedge-grass growing between silt-covered rocks. In the distance we can see the farther shore, half hidden behind a high bush which is silhouetted against the background of a barely visible area of woodland. The rays of the rising sun are shining through the dense morning mist and illuminate the surface of the water. The artist conveys the calmness of the water through the use of tonal gradients — gradual transitions from one color to another. The sunlight intensifies the sense of depth, giving an impression of space and suggesting the reverent joy of this moment on a summer morning. The picture conveys to the viewer a feeling of peace, a rare sense of calm, and an eerie silence and harmony.
The lake which the artist depicts in this painting is situated in an attractive part of the Mountain Shoria region. Many of the lakes in this beautiful region are ancient, and relatively large and deep. In the forests of Mountain Shoria there are many colorful lakes and pools of a striking and rare beauty which leaves a lasting impression on all those who experience it. On a clear day, they have a particularly other-worldly quality. Then the sun’s rays shining like sparks in the blue distance.
Nikolai Soldatov had a special gift for depicting the striking and mysterious beauty of his region.
