In the article you will find information about the Soviet artist A. A. Deineck, the famous author of monumental works, painter and graphic artist. Describes in detail his painting "The Defense of Petrograd" and its artistic features.
short biography
The artist Alexander Aleksandrovich Deineka (1899-1969) is a Soviet artist. He received the title of People's Artist of the USSR in 1963, a full member of the Academy of Arts of the USSR since 1947, Hero of Socialist Labor (1969).
A. A. Deineka is a teacher (professor since 1940) at Vhutein and other Moscow art institutes.
Best works:
- Defense of Petrograd, 1928
- “Mother”, Tretyakov Gallery, 1932
- “Donbass. Lunch break ”, Art Museum of the Latvian SSR, 1935
- Future Pilots Tretyakov Gallery, 1938
- series "Sevastopol", Tretyakov Gallery 1932-1934
- "Defense of Sevastopol", Russian Museum, 1942 and many others.
The artist is the author of mosaic plafond works decorating such metro stations:
- Mayakovskaya (1938-1939).
- Novokuznetskaya (1943) in Moscow.
- The frieze in the foyer of the Palace of Congresses (Moscow, Kremlin, 1960-1961), as well as many other graphic and pictorial works.
His awards: Order of Lenin, Order of the Red Banner of Labor, medals.
The style and manner of the artist
Back in the 20s, the artist had his own circle of themes and images in painting and drawing, which determined the nature of the work of A. A. Deineka as a whole. This is industrial labor, less often - the labor of villagers, urban life and sports. Everywhere the artist seeks and finds the heroism of work and heroes, seeks to express new, socialist and communist sentiments and relationships, to determine the peculiarities of the worldview of the new Soviet man. His works are filled with pathos of the military and labor heroic everyday life of the Country of Soviets.
The works of A. A. Deineka in the 1920s are almost monochrome. They are very expressive, distinguished by the monumentality of forms. Their peculiarity is the dynamics of compositions, which is usually based on a sharp contrast between planes and volumes, black and white, a variety of plans for the entire space and graphically clear, often very sharp, style of writing.
The images depicted are groups of people: workers, soldiers, athletes, demonstrators, etc. These images, as a rule, are generalized and typified by submission to the general rhythm of movement, general aspiration and unambiguously reveal the plan, as is also seen in the picture of Alexander Deineka - “Defense of Petrograd” .
Description of the artwork "Defense of Petrograd"
"Defense of Petrograd" was created by the artist in the late 20s, (1928, author's repetition - 1956). This work by A. A. Deineka is considered his best work on a historical and revolutionary theme, is stored in the capital's Central Museum of the USSR Armed Forces.
The author compositionally organizes the space as on antique friezes, choosing the motive of the procession of the city’s defenders - soldiers of the revolution. This gives the picture a flatness, regularity, movement in two directions. The composition is built in three plans, three ribbons.
In the foreground are the Red Army soldiers — men and women — going to the front, with rifles on their shoulders, dressed as if they were casual, their clothes are ordinary, working. Their motivated faces are decisive and severe. The figures move from left to right assertively and steadily. Clearly conveyed by the artist their faith in the future, the greatness of their feat
In the background, on the upper ribbon, a picture unfolds of the return of the wounded from battle, exhausted, but holy believers in the victory of the soldiers. They have already experienced what war is. The rhythm of movement of this tape is slowed down, as it were, by the curvature, distortion of the figures, they have lost the pressure, but there is still faith that others will finish the work they started. This part of the film “The Defense of Petrograd” leaves the viewer with a deep internal rejection of the war. Anti-militarism is generally characteristic of the artist's work.
The contrast between the movements of the figures of Deineka’s painting “Defense of Petrograd” on these two tapes is huge. Groups of people move in different directions and at different speeds. The wounded are wandering, their figures are silhouette. Whereas those going in the opposite direction are figures of people striving for the "last mortal battle", which are interpreted in bulk. Generalization, typification of the images of both groups, their departure “from nowhere to nowhere” give the movement of the painting by Alexander Deineka “Defense of Petrograd” the character of a vicious circle. Traceability of events is traced. This movement, like the color and volume of the foreground figures of the picture, the silhouette of the top and the stillness of the landscape give the picture a unique three-dimensional depth and expressiveness, make you think about the cyclical nature and the continuous connection of heroism and the price paid for it. This method of deciding the composition will be repeated by the author of the “Defense of Petrograd” Alexander Deineka repeatedly in the future.
Far away, on the third insignificant and narrow ribbon of the picture, the landscape is depicted: Neva with ships and part of the embankment. Frozen from frost, the ice-cold shore from the Baltic winds emphasizes the rigidity and severity of the canvas, combines the dynamics of the intense rhythm of movement on two other belts.
Work on the picture
The “Defense of Petrograd” artist Deineka finished in two weeks. But work on the picture was preceded by a long and complex preliminary stage of life. Repeatedly changed the concept of the work, and, accordingly, its composition. The author made a series of sketches for the canvas from real, specific people who defended revolutionary Petrograd from Yudenich. The sketch of the commander by the artist was made with a real military commander, a Red Army soldier.
The artist Alexander Deineka in “The Defense of Petrograd” deliberately limited the color palette of the canvas, choosing cold bluish-steel, grayish, brown tones, whitened the background as much as possible. Almost black bridge structures, clear and strong, emphasize the clarity and unbending power of the foreground figures. Deineka himself knew about the civil war firsthand: he himself participated in the defense of Kursk. Perhaps that is why the painting “Defense of Petrograd” contains not only an unbending faith in the triumph of the ideals of the revolution, but also the theme of human suffering. All this conveys the image of a revolutionary city, the events of that heroic era that were still alive in the memory of people in the late 1920s.