A Thank You to you, my readers… we broke 50,000 hits today!

 

A Girl with Berries (Nikolai Rachkov, 1879)

When I starting this site last November, I truly did not know where this was going. The shortage of crystal balls being what it is, that is not surprising. However, there is one thing that I have no illusions upon. This site is not successful because of me. It is successful because it fills a niche in YOUR life. I am humbled to be able to fill it for you.

My job is simply to take you by the hand to show you what I have discovered over my lifetime of our Russian art and culture. It is a blossom of the Orthodox culture, one which is not Western in the least, although many Russian artists have used Western techniques. We are the bridge between the Oriental, the Western, and the Islamic worlds. There are elements of all in our world-view and much indigenous to us alone, leading to a special culture that is unique in the world.

Orthodox culture has been centred in Moscow since the fall of Tsargrad to the Turks in 1453. That is to say, we Russians are the leaders of the Orthodox world because we are the largest, most developed, and most powerful section of world Orthodoxy. If we catch a cold, the rest of the Orthodox world suffers, as the era of the Bolshevik persecutions proved most abundantly.

This is our art, this is our culture. Thank you for stopping by. Don’t be a stranger, come again!

BOG BLAGOSLOVIT!

Vara Drezhlo

Sunday 20 July 2008 

Boris Shcherbakov. Silence on Lake Nero. 1973

Silence on Lake Nero (Boris Shcherbakov, 1973)

Well, if we’ve met Uncle Shura and ate at table with him, what is the view outside his window…

Vladimir Stozharov. Still Life with Bread. 1959

Still Life with Bread (Vladimir Stozharov, 1959)

Here is what is at table at Uncle Shura’s house. Good, hearty, dependable Russian food. Black bread, scallions, a pot of shchi, tea, sugar, and salt… what else does one need?

Vasili Maksimov. A Girl. 1866

A Girl (Vasili Maksimov, 1866)

Maksimov was one of the early Peredvizhniki, but, he was the archetypical starving artist. Apparently, he had a nasty personality, and that was that.

Vasili Maksimov. Dreaming of the Future. 1868

Dreaming of the Future [Vasili Maksimov, 1868]

A mother prepares for the coming birth of her child. Look at this painting, and reflect on one of the most inane beliefs about today, “people have changed”. I think not, and those who say so wish to destroy everything that is good amongst us. Mankind has not changed in the least, save for superficial things, which is no change at all, I say. Not only are the good things still living, the same as before, I say that humanity is still the same lot of “sinful-ginfuls” as in the first century AD (I take that back! Since the Garden!). Even the excuses are the same, they come dressed in “psychobabble”, that is all.

Honour the good, watch out for the bad, nothing has changed… nor shall it. Let’s raise a glass to the human race, it shall outlast the PC punks, as it has outlasted all other such novelties. Na stroviya!