cruel prohibitions were
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
Antoine Bourdelle and Aristide Maillol – antiquity in the works
Antoine Bourdelle and Aristide Mayol. What binds them? That they were born in the same year – 1861st? That both are French? Or that they are outstanding sculptors and are at the forefront of the art of the 20th century? Yes it is. But, among other things, another, very important. They admired antiquity and became its living carriers in an era that did little to flourish sculpture.
Sculptors lived at the turn of the century. Humanity was on the verge of the First World War, the October Revolution, which shook the foundations of the old system. Closed the last page of classical art history. The first letters fit into a book called Modern Art. Continue reading
Artists of besieged Leningrad
In the city on the Neva, in the House of Artists, in front of the entrance to the exhibition halls hangs a large marble plaque. On it are carved the names of those killed in the Great Patriotic War. More than 150 artists …
1941 Winter blockade bombing. Shelling, hunger, cold. Uncountable thousands of deaths … Continue reading