Alexander Balabayev (1932 — 2012) was born in Leningrad. After graduating from the Repin Institute of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture, he went to the Altai Region, and soon moved from there to Kaliningrad. Starting from 1970-s, Balabayev began to participate actively in the artistic life of the city. Striving for inspiration, he travelled a lot — he visited Germany, Sweden and Holland, but he always came back to Kaliningrad. Most often, he depicted the reserved nature of the Baltic Region and Central Russia. The artist worked a lot with nature and could see and convey the finest hues of landscapes.
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Alexander Balabayev
Winter
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Largely Balabayev was oriented towards Russian representatives of realistic art of the 19th century. He worked in Tver and Vladimir, Old Ladoga and Suzdal depicting monuments of old Russian architecture and local landscapes, of course. Iconic images from Russian fairy tales inspired Balabayev greatly, and he dedicated some of his works to them — they looked more colorful then the landscapes from life and resembled Russian lubok (popular prints).
When painting the Baltic coast, the artist as a rule turned to the traditions of lyrical landscape. Isaac Levitan, one of the best known masters of this genre, once wrote about Alexei Savrasov, another Russian artist, that he was trying to find in the most average things those intimate and touchy features, sometimes sad, which you can feel so strongly in our home landscape. Balabayev was striving for the same — his paintings are full of sympathy and attention to Russian nature, yet, they are very modern in terms of perception of the environment.
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In 1969, Balabayev joined the Union of Artists of the USSR and moved to Kaliningrad. This was the trigger for creating the painting Winter. The artist based it on the sketch he had made from the window of his apartment in Kaliningrad.
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The artist depicted the street in the twilight hour. The subdued coloring helped him to convey the warm atmosphere of a winter evening. The painting is full of conciliation created by the olden and ochroid hues. Balabayev loved to make sketches of the city and its surroundings. Very quickly, he developed the feeling of a hometown towards Kaliningrad, and in many of his landscapes, we can see somewhat idyllic undertones.
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Kaliningrad Regional Museum of Fine Arts
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Winter
Creation period
1970
Dimensions
80x100 cm
Technique
Сanvas, oil painting
Collection
2
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