Yakut painter Afanasy Osipov was born on February 28, 1928. In his youth, he went from the Yakut village to Moscow to study at the Moscow Secondary Art School at the Moscow State Academic Art Institute named after V.I. Surikov, and then entered the institute. Osipov participated in the republican, all-union, and foreign art exhibitions, became a People’s Artist of the USSR, an academician of the Russian Academy of Arts, and was awarded the Ilya Repin State Prize of the RSFSR.
A contemporary artist and a people’s poet of Yakutia Natalia Kharlampieva spoke about the artist: “I was surprised and admired not only this. In his perception of the world, everything was harmonious, and everything had its place, such as good, evil, envy, gratitude, and the ability to be the first or trudge at the end. He took life philosophically both without judging anyone and without offending anyone. In the valley of his life, love and talent bloomed. Life boomed in all its splendor, and the peaks of the mountains sparkled, thus reminding of honor and dignity.”
The exhibition “Art World of Afanasy Osipov” introduces the work of this famous Yakut. In the painting “Spring Morning at the Horse Breeders” Site’, the artist depicted a winter landscape with rare buildings and a rider in the foreground. Horse breeders’ sites were usually located near populated areas and resembled small villages where horse breeders lived seasonally, sometimes with their families. They looked after the herds of the Yakut horse, which is one of the most hardy breeds. The site is located in the drained lake that is typical for Yakut landscape. It is an oval-shaped hollow with a diameter of up to several kilometers and a depth of up to 30 meters, which is formed during the extraction of underground ice, as well as shrinkage of soil and rocks.
The landscape is made in cold colors. The horizontal extent of the land repeated by a strip of distant forest is blocked by the vertical trunks of trees in the foreground. The lace of long shadows complicates the rhythm in the picture. It is complemented by artfully drawn trees in the snow. The artist manages to convey silence and peace.
A contemporary artist and a people’s poet of Yakutia Natalia Kharlampieva spoke about the artist: “I was surprised and admired not only this. In his perception of the world, everything was harmonious, and everything had its place, such as good, evil, envy, gratitude, and the ability to be the first or trudge at the end. He took life philosophically both without judging anyone and without offending anyone. In the valley of his life, love and talent bloomed. Life boomed in all its splendor, and the peaks of the mountains sparkled, thus reminding of honor and dignity.”
The exhibition “Art World of Afanasy Osipov” introduces the work of this famous Yakut. In the painting “Spring Morning at the Horse Breeders” Site’, the artist depicted a winter landscape with rare buildings and a rider in the foreground. Horse breeders’ sites were usually located near populated areas and resembled small villages where horse breeders lived seasonally, sometimes with their families. They looked after the herds of the Yakut horse, which is one of the most hardy breeds. The site is located in the drained lake that is typical for Yakut landscape. It is an oval-shaped hollow with a diameter of up to several kilometers and a depth of up to 30 meters, which is formed during the extraction of underground ice, as well as shrinkage of soil and rocks.
The landscape is made in cold colors. The horizontal extent of the land repeated by a strip of distant forest is blocked by the vertical trunks of trees in the foreground. The lace of long shadows complicates the rhythm in the picture. It is complemented by artfully drawn trees in the snow. The artist manages to convey silence and peace.
