conventionality traditional
Vincent van Gogh in Holland
In 1879, when the epidemic of typhoid fever and fever in a multitude mowed people, Borinage’s miners marveled at the young lord, who fearlessly avoided the infected shacks, nursing the sick and maimed. This man was Vincent Van Gogh. Traveling over half of Europe, he ended up as a missionary at the coal mines. When the disaster at the mine was followed by a massive explosion of indignation of the miners, Vincent, their defender, entered into open conflict with the administration. “For almost two years,” he wrote bitterly about this to his brother, “I had to go through something in Borinage that did not look like a pleasure walk.” The unrest of the miners was suppressed, and the obstinate preacher was denied a seat. Continue reading
Wooden sculpture of Prikamye
The discovery of this “completely unprecedented and absolutely amazing phenomenon” – the original folk art of the Kama region – belongs to N. N. Serebrennikov, an Ural art historian, collector and researcher of wooden sculpture. For 40 years he worked as a director and chief curator of the Perm Art Gallery.
“… I clearly remember that incident,” Nikolai Nikolayevich wrote. – It happened in the village of Ilinsky, Perm province in 1922. Tired, then I went to my house. A gusting wind blew. Continue reading
