‘Portrait Against the Green Background’ was created by Nicolai Cikovsky in the early 1920s. Experts suggest that this painting is in fact a self-portrait.
The portrayed man is rather young, and his thoughtful gaze is directed right at the viewers. The painter created a simple composition with no excessive detail. This allows to fully focus on the psychological value of the portrait: the man possesses a great inner strength, for his demeanor is confident and straightforward. The emerald-green background is characteristic of many Cikovsky’s paintings. It persisted as his signature feature in the portraits of the 1920s — 1930s, and sometimes even after that.
Such Cikovsky’s paintings can rarely be found in Russian museums. The reason for that is Cikovsky’s immigration to the USA when he was still quite young. In the 1920s, not long before his departure, the painter lived in Yekaterinburg, where he worked as an art professor in the Higher Tech Art Institute together with his friend and colleague Alexander Labas.
“Portrait Against the Green Background” most likely belongs to the painter’s Ural artwork period. Art experts believe that this painting was a turning point of his career: the trip to the Ural region somehow changed Cikovsky’s preferences from Cubo-Futurism back to figurativism.
Cubo-Futurism is a rather broad concept, for Russian avant-garde never specified any characteristic artistic elements for it. It can be said that this movement combined the displacement of traditional forms of Cubism and the dynamics of time and space of Futurism.
In the mid-1930s, after experimenting with Cubo-Futurism, Cikovsky would decide on a more realistic manner of painting and become a member of Social Realism movement in the USA. It is important to differentiate between Social Realism and Socialist Realism. In contrast with Socialist Realism, which was used to glorify the Soviet government and the heroic achievements of workers, Social Realism rather showed everyday life of the working class and the poor without unnecessary enthusiastic exaggeration. In the USA, Cikovsky befriended a famous artist David Burliuk and joined the Hampton Bays Art Group.
The portrayed man is rather young, and his thoughtful gaze is directed right at the viewers. The painter created a simple composition with no excessive detail. This allows to fully focus on the psychological value of the portrait: the man possesses a great inner strength, for his demeanor is confident and straightforward. The emerald-green background is characteristic of many Cikovsky’s paintings. It persisted as his signature feature in the portraits of the 1920s — 1930s, and sometimes even after that.
Such Cikovsky’s paintings can rarely be found in Russian museums. The reason for that is Cikovsky’s immigration to the USA when he was still quite young. In the 1920s, not long before his departure, the painter lived in Yekaterinburg, where he worked as an art professor in the Higher Tech Art Institute together with his friend and colleague Alexander Labas.
“Portrait Against the Green Background” most likely belongs to the painter’s Ural artwork period. Art experts believe that this painting was a turning point of his career: the trip to the Ural region somehow changed Cikovsky’s preferences from Cubo-Futurism back to figurativism.
Cubo-Futurism is a rather broad concept, for Russian avant-garde never specified any characteristic artistic elements for it. It can be said that this movement combined the displacement of traditional forms of Cubism and the dynamics of time and space of Futurism.
In the mid-1930s, after experimenting with Cubo-Futurism, Cikovsky would decide on a more realistic manner of painting and become a member of Social Realism movement in the USA. It is important to differentiate between Social Realism and Socialist Realism. In contrast with Socialist Realism, which was used to glorify the Soviet government and the heroic achievements of workers, Social Realism rather showed everyday life of the working class and the poor without unnecessary enthusiastic exaggeration. In the USA, Cikovsky befriended a famous artist David Burliuk and joined the Hampton Bays Art Group.
