The main motive in the oeuvre of Haris Yakupov, a seminal artist of Soviet Tatarstan, is his admiration of the people of labor with their impressive beauty and powerful spirit. In the post-war period, when the country was rising from ashes, the image of strong man as a creator of a new world, full of confidence in the future, stood in the center of attention. Hence, Yakupov was mainly engaged in portraying such people.
Starting from 1958, his interest was focused on collective farmers. In the course of seven years, he went to the Mullanur Vakhitov collective farm every summer and made about thirty portraits there. It was then that he worked out his individual manner in painting. The artist abandoned the solitude of his studio and took to plain-air painting, plunging into a beautiful variety of landscape. His works of the period are marked with expression and accentuated sensory experience, which is manifested in extreme richness of color and freedom of drawing.
All this change is much in evidence in the picture Strong People (Young dairymaids F. Garaeva, M. Islamova and S. Sagdieva). The girls are portrayed after a morning milking operation, surrounded by milk churns.
Starting from 1958, his interest was focused on collective farmers. In the course of seven years, he went to the Mullanur Vakhitov collective farm every summer and made about thirty portraits there. It was then that he worked out his individual manner in painting. The artist abandoned the solitude of his studio and took to plain-air painting, plunging into a beautiful variety of landscape. His works of the period are marked with expression and accentuated sensory experience, which is manifested in extreme richness of color and freedom of drawing.
All this change is much in evidence in the picture Strong People (Young dairymaids F. Garaeva, M. Islamova and S. Sagdieva). The girls are portrayed after a morning milking operation, surrounded by milk churns.
They are not overcome with tiredness, on the contrary, they look smiling and cheerful. The canvas reveals the essence of the national character which is quiet and powerful; the innermost link between man and soil and great significance of everyday peasant labor is emphasized. The dairymaids are represented as national bread winners and in a broader sense, they can be interpreted as those giving bread to the whole humanity. This global image is accentuated by the size of the painting.
The picture is created across two genres – group portrait and genre painting. However, it is imbued with lyrical mood and femininity. The girls are in tune with the landscape full of bright colors, dynamic and lit by the sun. The sunlight penetrates through their light clothes and touches their swarthy cheeks with glow. The patches of sunlight with splotches of color highlight the beauty of their picturesque national dresses.
The picture is created across two genres – group portrait and genre painting. However, it is imbued with lyrical mood and femininity. The girls are in tune with the landscape full of bright colors, dynamic and lit by the sun. The sunlight penetrates through their light clothes and touches their swarthy cheeks with glow. The patches of sunlight with splotches of color highlight the beauty of their picturesque national dresses.
