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Nathalia Somova
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| When you enter Somova's home, you enter a wonderful world of nature, not just a world of landscapes, still lifes, trees and birds, but a world of urban nature, familiar to and surrounding all of us: a building, a bridge, the corner of a house, a perspective of a street or curved lamp post пїЅ no less artistic than the banks of a swamp, the forest edge or a tuft of green grass. Every real artist knows and paints this. And Somova is a real artist. Moreover, real life is like inciting a fantasy, and it is unknown what came before that пїЅ a yard with doves, acorns and angels, or a feeling, a thought. An apropos fantasy. A natural, geographical etude (cycles on Shchelykova, Riga, Prague, etc.) can turn into a large painting in which the viewer becomes lost as if he's standing on the globe and is dumbfounded by some kind of inspiration, which the artist prefers to verbally define through fantasy or not without pretentious novelties: I look at you with the gaze of many centuries, a waltz in black dresses on the barge Izyda. Somova is without a doubt a poet (I wouldn't be surprised if she wrote poetry and prose in addition to painting). And of course, with this first visit to her home, which has become a crowded storeroom for a quantity of work, it is clear that an entire world of nature has not only been recreated, but divinely created by a great deal of labor and a sparkling quality of inspiration. MlKHAIL ROSHCHlN | |
