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Sholokhov-Centre will Show Literary Places of Russia

Sholokhov-Centre of the Museum-Reserve of M.A.Sholokhov in Rostov-on-Don will open on January 25, the exhibition “The Genius Lived Here…” Literary Places of Russia. For the 100th Anniversary of the Painter Boris Shcherbakov”. It is a joint project presenting the painter’s works from the Museum of L.N.Tolstoy (Moscow), the Museum of A.S.Pushkin (Moscow), the Museum-Reserve of A.S.Pushkin “Mikhailovskoye” (the Pskov Region), the Museum-Reserve of M.A.Sholokhov and the family collection of B.V.Shcherbakov.

The exhibition displaying over 40 works is devoted to the life and work of the remarkable painter Boris Valentinovich Shcherbakov (1916–1995) and is themed “Literary Places of Russia”.

The name of Boris Shcherbakov ranks among the best of the masters of Russian landscape painting. He was a gifted continuator of the great painters of the Russian realistic school. He succeeded in finding and expressing a special tonality in the painting score chosen by him and in conveying the deep essence of poetic feelings begotten by the native wildlife motives, their natural charm having no false prettiness and pathos.

The painter expressed himself in different genres, but he went down in history of the domestic art as a founder of the “literary landscape” genre focused on depicting the natural sites of the literary places connected with the life and work of the great Russian writers A.S.Pushkin, M.Y.Lermontov, I.S.Turgenev, L.N.Tolstoy, M.A.Sholokhov and their Penates – Mikhailovskoye and Trigorskoye, Tarkhany and the Caucasus, Spasskoye-Lutovinovo, Yasnaya Polyana, Vyoshenskaya.

The idea of creating the thematic cycles “Literary Places of Russia” was realized in the 1960s.The subject of the first cycle was the theme of Yasnaya Polyana, where L.N.Tolstoy lived and worked. “Working over the landscapes of Yasnaya Polyana I was less interested in showing some memorial motives… I always wanted to impart a special meaning to these landscapes…”– the painter confessed.

In 1975, at his personal exhibition, the painter showed a gallery of his pictures “Literary Places of Russia”, which aroused a lot of public interest. Besides Yasnaya Polyana, the paintings show Spasskoye-Lutovinovo, Mikhailovskoye and Trigorskoye, Tarkhany.

In the 1970s, the painter visited the homeland of M.A.Sholokhov in Stanitsa Vyoshenskaya, met and talked with the author of the novel “And Quiet Flows the Don”. Besides the fine portrait of the writer, he created wonderful Don country landscapes markedly different from the landscapes of the central Russia. Trying to show the space and expanse of the “feather grass steppes” the painter uses a panoramic composition. The size of the pictures is not big, but the space looks unusually voluminous, as if a poetic talent of the great epic writer is focused in it. If the cycle connected with Tolstoy is a historical and philosophical narration, then the cycle connected with Sholokhov is a bright poem about the flowering Don country, where fierce passions raged, where the people deadly loved and hated. And where “in a wise silence the mounds cherish the buried Cossack glory …”

Numerous documents, photos, a fine “Self-Portrait” of the painter are provided from the personal collection of the painter by his daughter G.B.Shcherbakova.

The beauty of the native wildlife, love and kindness, desire to convey joy, pain, anxiety and admiration to everyone are typical for the painter’s works. “Everything Shcherbakov painted, – one of his contemporaries said, – is done not with his hands, but with his heart.”

The exhibition “The Genius Lived Here…”Literary Places of Russia. For the 100th Anniversary of the Painter Boris Shcherbakov” will run in Sholokhov-Centre of the Museum-Reserve of M.A.Sholokhov until April 2, 2017, in: 125/69, Bolshaya Sadovaya Str., Rostov-on-Don.

Valery Yemelyanov