The exhibition of the Irbit State Museum of Fine Arts presents an engraving “Building the Kazansky Station in Moscow. Tower” created by Vadim Dmitriyevich Falileyev. The center of the composition pictures a tower — the central section of the Kazansky Railway Station in Moscow at one of the construction stages. It was stylized to resemble the Suyumbike Tower, which is an architectural symbol of Kazan. The artist used six printing plates to make this colored linocut.
The beginning of the 20th century gave rise to many wonderful artists, writers, poets, and philosophers. This period in Russian art is called the “Silver Age”. The 20th century became the heyday of Russian engraving, the period of its revival. It transitioned from simply a reproduction technique to an independent form of art. The reproduction tasks that used to fall to engraving were now performed using photography. Russian artists saw a great potential in engraving and turned to it to embody their creative aspirations.
Vadim Dmitriyevich Falileyev worked with woodcut, etching, linocut and lithography. It is evident that Falileyev was influenced by various artistic trends and gravitated towards decorativeness and brightness in his own art. This penchant for bright colors stayed with him throughout his life and manifested itself in his color engravings as well. Color engraving is by definition supposed to be flat and therefore does not imply creating the illusion of real space. On the contrary, the artist must adhere to the flatness of the sheet and convey images of the world using lines and color spots, as well as fit all the richness of colors of the world into combinations of colors while keeping it realistic. Falileyev’s first color engravings already proved him to be a skilled artist with a unique vision of the world and his own unique imagery. The artist did not have to take a long path of apprenticeship — his exceptional talent was discovered early.
The architect Alexey Viktorovich Shchusev, who built the Kazansky Railway Station in Moscow, commissioned a series of engravings and etchings depicting this historic construction from Vadim Falileyev. The artist was fascinated by the topic as he discovered the beauty of the modern industrial landscape. Falileyev found genuine poetry, dynamics and expressional rhythms in seemingly boring, unexciting and angular geometric designs.
