What fascinates the cubo-futuristic paintings of Vasily Krotkov

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

Continuing to acquaint the reader with contemporary Russian painters, one cannot ignore the works of one unique artist who, with his work, not only revived the best traditions of Russian avant-garde art at the beginning of the 20th century, but also brought his individual vision, techniques and author's handwriting into the style called cubo-futurism … Economist by education, artist by worldview Vasily Krotkov, having an analytical mindset, skillfully calculates in his paintings the trajectory of the refracted light rays, and the angle of their incidence, and the number of faces in the images and objects depicted by him.

Cubo-futurism is one of the styles of pictorial art that came to Russia at the beginning of the last century and received its incredibly rapid development at the same time, however, as well as a rather rapid decline. However, this style, which was extremely popular a hundred years ago, today, after a long oblivion, is experiencing its rebirth. Now this direction in its name has acquired the prefix "post" and is called "post-cubo-futurism".

Many Russian contemporary artists have become involved in the resurrection of this trend and, among them, I would like to name the novice Moscow painter - Vasily Vyacheslavovich Krotkov. Despite his venerable age, he is considered an aspiring artist. And to find out why a beginner - you need to look at the pages of his biography.

How it all began…

Vasily Krotkov was born in 1959 in Moscow. From an early age he was fond of drawing, and while studying at an art school he became seriously interested in painting. However, as often happens, the parents, when the time came to choose a profession, insisted that their son go to economics. And so it happened - the young man entered the capital's university, successfully graduated from it and made a good career as an economist.

However, the art education received in a specialized school was not in vain as a teenager - it gave its shoots, albeit late. And Vasily Krotkov unexpectedly decided to try his luck, and already in adulthood he took up his brushes and returned to painting. Post-cubo-futurism became precisely the style that carried the master into the creative process with his head and revealed his enormous creative abilities. However, it is quite natural that this is the direction chosen for himself by a person with a mathematical mindset, who thinks analytically.

… And the experience of painting, gained in his youth at the art school, helped to create a harmonious flavor, the ratio of the color range and its shades. Since futurism in painting is not only a harmony of compositional figures and images, but also a spectrum of correctly selected colors. It was this approach that allowed the Moscow artist to create the originality and uniqueness of the author's style.

Post-cubo-futurist Vasily Krotkov, who revived the domestic cubic avant-garde

Having come to art as a mature and successful person, Vasily Krotkov quickly found his artistic language, taking the style of cubo-futurism as a basis.

The painter himself, talking about why he chose this direction for himself, says: Probably, you cannot formulate your thought more precisely when speaking about this most interesting style in painting.

And apparently that is why the work of the Moscow post-cubo-futurist, who knows how to show and make the viewer fully feel the depth of the foundations of the universe, so attracts and delights the viewer. And besides, to convey to the public through his work what the artist himself sees with the third eye, but the others do not see.

It should also be noted that with his unique style Vasily Vyacheslavovich Krotkov covered almost all painting genres. We can see his stunning portraits, as if from broken fragments, and landscape motifs and delightful still lifes complex in composition, consisting at first glance of the most simple objects. And sometimes the painter completely departs from any genres and writes in the style of fantasy, where he gives full free rein to his imagination. By the way, this free style fits into the direction he has chosen in a very original way.

And what is characteristic, unlike the works of many artists, capturing a moment in the "freeze-frame" mode, Krotkov masterly creates an ordered chaos of moments ready to change at any moment. This dynamic movement, first of all, creates chiaroscuro on the canvas. So, depicting objects in the fourth dimension, that is, in time, the avant-garde artist skillfully uses a source of light, whether it comes from the plane of the picture itself, or from outside. And the sun's rays, refracting through the edges of objects, as well as reflecting and scattering over its entire plane, give a stunning effect of the play of light and shadow, which is used to a greater extent in graphics.

This fascinating special effect is enhanced by a unique technique of cubo-futurism - the decomposition of volumes into geometric shapes, their deformation and multiplication of contours. This is what gives the compositional objects amazing dynamics, and the refracted rays most vividly emphasize the boundaries between light and darkness on the artist's canvases.

Summing up the above, I would like to note that specialists from a professional point of view note another special feature of the author's handwriting of a modern avant-garde artist. Vasily Vyacheslavovich Krotkov skillfully uses a technique that makes the viewer feel not just an outside observer, but as if placed deep into the picture itself.

And this is due to the fact that the master, arranging objects, is very often inclined not to indicate the main point of view, but uses several of them. Therefore, his paintings are sometimes difficult to perceive. Nevertheless, such a special effect is quite original and distinguishes the author from other post-cubo-futurists of our time.

And if we consider the work of Vasily Krotkov from a philosophical point of view, then in it you can clearly see the author's desire to expand the Universe on a plane and face, while trying to find new meanings in familiar things, to learn more about the environment than is evident at first glance. In other words, he is trying to get to the bottom of the essence and convey it to the viewer.

You can get acquainted with the work of the artist who created his own unique corporate style in painting in the review Portraits in the style of old Russian icon painting, created by the modern master of the brush Andrei Remnev.