In the painting "Boys" F. P. Reshetnikov continues to create a gallery of images of Soviet children, which the master began to write in the postwar years. The outstanding realist for his works in different years was awarded orders and medals.
Fedor Pavlovich Reshetnikov
The future artist was born in a village in Ukraine in 1906 in a family of hereditary icon painters. He was orphaned early and, when he grew up, began to help his elder brother, who, in order to survive, dropped out of school and continued his father's work. He became his apprentice, and later, seeing that without education it is impossible to find an interesting job, he left for Moscow and there he graduated from the labor department in 1929. Then there was study for higher art education. His teachers were D. S. Moor and S. V. Gerasimov. Even in his student days, a schedule by education, a mocker and a romantic, he took part in several polar expeditions, which all Soviet people watched with bated breath. After all, he and the Cheluskinites were on a drifting ice floe. And although his vocation was cartoon and satire, the artist eagerly engaged in easel painting.
By 1953, having already become a recognized master and academician, he suddenly draws children with enthusiasm, becoming younger with them. One of the paintings will be a picture of Reshetnikov's "Boys", a description of which will be given in the next section.
The plot of the picture
Arranging still in the afternoon, three boys living in a big city, late in the evening, climbed onto the roof of the tallest house in their area to take a closer look at the starry sky.
They are eight to ten years old. And they, of course, know everything: about the flights of Squirrels and Strelka, about the first flight into space of a Soviet man and about the fact that our rockets with astronauts and satellites continue to explore boundless space. This is the picture of Reshetnikov's “Boys”, the description of which has already begun.
Close-up
In the foreground are three boys with different characters. Look at their faces and poses.
In the center with a raised hand that points to something, there is a connoisseur who is clearly giving a lecture. Of course, he had already visited the planetarium, reviewed the atlases of the starry sky, and knew all the constellations of the Northern and Southern Hemispheres. Now he, perhaps, shows where to find the Polar Star, in which constellation it is, or tells how to find the Ursa Major in the sky and why it is called that way, or shows Orion - the most beautiful constellation - the butterfly of our latitudes. Or maybe he points to a flying satellite. There is something to see in the sky.
Reshetnikov’s painting “Boys”, the description of which is given in this material, will also tell about the characters of two other boys. The blond-haired boy standing next to the left is clearly younger (he is shorter, and his expression is more naive), and he with interest absorbs knowledge unknown to him. Reshetnikov's painting “Boys”, the description of which continues, very clearly outlined the character of a younger boy, inquisitive, but still not able to independently find new knowledge. And the most interesting and mysterious character is a dreamer. He is depicted comfortably leaning on a ledge of the roof and listening half-heartedly to his friend’s sophisticated reasoning. His own ideas about galactic travels are already taking shape in his head, in which he may now already take part.
In the background
And behind the schoolchildren Reshetnikov ("Boys"), whose description of the picture continues, depicted the city landscape. He is unusually good. Tall houses with windows gleaming with gold of warm homeliness float in the haze and become part of the vast Cosmos. Only his name is native - Earth, which attracts every real astronaut. After wandering, it is so pleasant to return to your homeland, to your beloved Earth.
On a warm summer evening, the description of F. Reshetnikov’s painting “Boys” ends, the boys make wishes, looking at the shooting stars. All three of them are aspiring with dreams to a future that will reveal many secrets to them. Time will pass and maybe their dreams will change, but the thirst for mastering a new, unknown, will remain.