The People’s Artist of Russia German Travnikov is one of prominent representatives of the Trans-Uralian art. Having graduated from the Sverdlovsk Art School in 1963, he found himself in the group of painters who returned to Kurgan and started their professional activity. In the art world German Travnikov is famous as a leading watercolourist. Thanks to his efforts the Artists Association supported the idea to create a Watercolour Museum in Kurgan. Travnikov also works with oil colours. Talking about the subjects of his works, it’s impossible to choose one specific motif. There are landscapes, genre scenes, historical works on the Decembrists. He remains true to the live impressions from the outside world. Despite the fact that the painter mostly works with landscapes, portraits became one of his practiced genres.
In his portraits German Travnikov often depicts creative people who are well-known in the city and its surroundings. One of such works was painted in 2014. It’s a portrait of Viktor Potanin. A writer and a publicist knew German Travnikov from the late 1960s. The work doesn’t have any features of the ceremonial portrait with its attributes of the writing job. Viktor Potanin isn’t depicted sitting in the chair writing a manuscript with the book-cases on the background. On the contrary, the idea of capturing the moment of time is clearly reflected in this portrait. The artist created the work using the pencil sketches drawn from life. We can see the hoar-headed man who had uneasy life, like the most people of his generation, and has gone through the suffers of the war time. There’s a certain ‘clever sorrow’ and ‘kindheartedness to everything’, which were the main features of Potanin’s individuality, according to his colleagues Viktor Astafyev and Valentin Rasputin. The viewer’s attention is unwillingly drawn to the writer’s face. The artist managed to reflect his deep look aimed somewhere far away in his thoughts. Travnikov used cold dark blue background colour often present in his paintings. Perhaps it is a symbol of life and even eternity, where each person is like a tree, growing and going through all stages of life. It’s not for nothing that a powerful and severe trunk is aligned with the writer’s clothes in terms of colour, in such a way symbolizing the power of this noble elderly man.
In his portraits German Travnikov often depicts creative people who are well-known in the city and its surroundings. One of such works was painted in 2014. It’s a portrait of Viktor Potanin. A writer and a publicist knew German Travnikov from the late 1960s. The work doesn’t have any features of the ceremonial portrait with its attributes of the writing job. Viktor Potanin isn’t depicted sitting in the chair writing a manuscript with the book-cases on the background. On the contrary, the idea of capturing the moment of time is clearly reflected in this portrait. The artist created the work using the pencil sketches drawn from life. We can see the hoar-headed man who had uneasy life, like the most people of his generation, and has gone through the suffers of the war time. There’s a certain ‘clever sorrow’ and ‘kindheartedness to everything’, which were the main features of Potanin’s individuality, according to his colleagues Viktor Astafyev and Valentin Rasputin. The viewer’s attention is unwillingly drawn to the writer’s face. The artist managed to reflect his deep look aimed somewhere far away in his thoughts. Travnikov used cold dark blue background colour often present in his paintings. Perhaps it is a symbol of life and even eternity, where each person is like a tree, growing and going through all stages of life. It’s not for nothing that a powerful and severe trunk is aligned with the writer’s clothes in terms of colour, in such a way symbolizing the power of this noble elderly man.
