The painting “Tuvan Still Life” by Sergey Konchukovich Lanzy depicts objects of traditional everyday life, which are organically integrated into the interior of a felt yurt. All the objects are grouped according to the following principle: furniture, clothes, dishes, tools and accessories.
The still life is remarkable for its compositional structure. At first glance, the picture presents a chaotic piling up of a large number of things that disperse the viewer’s attention. Such an abundance of objects adds to the complexity of composition, it is difficult to immediately see the center of the composition. All the viewer can do is look carefully at each object individually.
In the foreground, on red and mottled Chinese silk, there are charcoal tongs, a silk tobacco pouch with a braid and tassel, scissors, and a jewelry box all carelessly scattered about. In terms of utensils there is a mortar for grinding tea, a large bowl, a cup, and a faience bowl.
In the background, the artist depicted diverse objects in detail: a homemade broom, a bucket with a spout attached to a wooden pole on the yurt wall, a kettle in the form of a jug on the floor below, a cradle for a child in the center and a wooden trunk to the right.
The artist paid special attention to women’s clothing. On a rack is a festive dress, luxuriously decorated with multicolored strips of silk. The hem of the dress hangs carelessly from the trunk, where there is a festive peaked headdress with a mink cap and ribbons on the back.
It is interesting to note the artist’s technique of capturing the moment, as in photography. For example, the artist left as if “offscreen” part of the broom, the stand-up collar of a woman’s dress or some of her shoes, which allows the viewer to surmise the other objects that were not included in the compositional structure of the still life.
Sergey Konchukovich Lanzy (1927–1977) was one of the first painters of Tuva, who made a great contribution to the development of professional fine arts, a graduate of the Leningrad Institute of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture named after Ilya Repin, a member of the Union of Artists of the USSR, chairman of the Union of Artists of the Tuvan ASSR, honored worker of literature and art of the Tuvan ASSR (1966), honored Artist of the RSFSR (1968), winner of the State Prize of Tuva (1971), winner of the Order of Red Banner of Labor (1971).
