In the study “Winter” Valentina Kosmina depicted the ordinary world and a snowstorm — so strong that it brings fantasy to the canvas. The artist painted the blurry silhouettes in a sketchy laconic way, and so they became ghostlike and barely perceptible as if the figures were prepared to fly away following the snowflakes.
For the painting, the artist used the contrast technique: the few bright brown, green, and red spots stood out against the background of cold bluish tones, which Kosmina used to render the street.
In the center of the painting, there is a girl in a blue-green coat and a brown hat, hiding her hands in a fur muff to protect them from the cold. To the right, Kosmina depicted a child wearing a bright green hat and a scarf. His silhouette is barely marked by round white brush strokes and it almost blends into the background of the painting. Nearby you can see a brown splash — in this figurative way the artist depicted the mother holding her child’s hand. In the background is a man with a cane, and behind his back, there are shop windows with bright red flowers.
“Winter” is one of the early works of Valentina Kosmina. The artist was born in St. Petersburg into a Russian-Polish family in 1895. She received an academic education in her native city: first, she graduated from the School of the Imperial Society for the Encouragement of Arts, then from the Central Technical Drawing School.
From the mid-1930s, Kosmina exhibited paintings in Leningrad, Moscow, and the Far East cities, and since 1945, she entered the Union of Artists of the USSR. The artist worked in different genres; she masterfully painted portraits, still-life paintings, and landscapes. Valentina Kosmina’s paintings were varied in style, technique, and mood. Some art experts called them deliberately sketchy — this way the artist opposed herself to the strict academic painting of those years.
After the war, Kosmina lived on Verkhnyaya Maslovka Street in Moscow with her husband, Professor Ivan Kosmin, an Honored Artist of the RSFSR. It was an architectural complex, where artists and sculptors lived and worked.
Today Valentina Kosmina’s artworks are housed in state museums and private collections in Russia, Britain, Spain, and the USA.
For the painting, the artist used the contrast technique: the few bright brown, green, and red spots stood out against the background of cold bluish tones, which Kosmina used to render the street.
In the center of the painting, there is a girl in a blue-green coat and a brown hat, hiding her hands in a fur muff to protect them from the cold. To the right, Kosmina depicted a child wearing a bright green hat and a scarf. His silhouette is barely marked by round white brush strokes and it almost blends into the background of the painting. Nearby you can see a brown splash — in this figurative way the artist depicted the mother holding her child’s hand. In the background is a man with a cane, and behind his back, there are shop windows with bright red flowers.
“Winter” is one of the early works of Valentina Kosmina. The artist was born in St. Petersburg into a Russian-Polish family in 1895. She received an academic education in her native city: first, she graduated from the School of the Imperial Society for the Encouragement of Arts, then from the Central Technical Drawing School.
From the mid-1930s, Kosmina exhibited paintings in Leningrad, Moscow, and the Far East cities, and since 1945, she entered the Union of Artists of the USSR. The artist worked in different genres; she masterfully painted portraits, still-life paintings, and landscapes. Valentina Kosmina’s paintings were varied in style, technique, and mood. Some art experts called them deliberately sketchy — this way the artist opposed herself to the strict academic painting of those years.
After the war, Kosmina lived on Verkhnyaya Maslovka Street in Moscow with her husband, Professor Ivan Kosmin, an Honored Artist of the RSFSR. It was an architectural complex, where artists and sculptors lived and worked.
Today Valentina Kosmina’s artworks are housed in state museums and private collections in Russia, Britain, Spain, and the USA.
