Alexander Alexandrovich Deineka
Alexander Deineka was born on May 20, 1899, in Kursk. The work of Alexander Deineka belongs to the most significant phenomena of soviet art culture. All of it was directed to the future, he used art methods to express the power of life.
In the beginning, he followed his father’s path to study engineering to work in the railway industry, but everything changed when he visited an art studio at the age of 14. A little spark was felt and he decided to pursue to be an artist. His father was against his frivolous choice and rejected to aid him financially. That didn't stop him at all. The love for drawing led a sixteen-year-old boy, to the Kharkiv art school.
After graduation came back to Kursk to become an art teacher and as a photographer at the criminal investigation department between 1919–1920. The artist decided to use his talent during small festivals which usually was used to encourage soldiers. In 1928, for the 10th anniversary of the red army, he painted the picture “Defense of Petrograd”. No one has ever managed to embody an episode of those years with such force and life in a painting.
The main content of his paintings were contemporary people, their work, their everyday life. each canvas created in those years is a hymn to the beauty of life, the beauty of people but the artist also addressed the theme of the civil war in the 30s. One of the best works of this period was “Mother” (1932). The appearance of a young woman, majestic and gentle, natural, and harmony combined with physical and spiritual beauty. According to him, it is perceived by us as a moral and aesthetic ideal of a person from that time.
He was obsessed with complex machine constructions — lacy metal bridges and factory departments. He was fascinated every time when he found space of new workplace at factories penetrated with light and air.
In 1935, he left for his first creative trip abroad. He visited America, France, and Italy and did some paintings of his adventures. “A street in Rome” (1935), “Tuileries”(1935), “Negro Concert” (1935).
The artist’s creativity flourished in the thirties. He was very enthusiastic towards monumental paintings which decorated the interiors of public buildings. It was his dream of his youth to work and live such a life. Alexander Deineka’s “Stakhanovites” (1937) was painted for the soviet pavilion at the international exhibition in Paris.
A new stage of creativity in the field of monumental art was associated with mosaics. The artist was offered to make mosaic plafonds for the metro station “Mayakovskaya”. 35 mosaics revealing a panorama of the life in the country during that period were produced. Even today in 2020, those mosaics are still there. The next time you visit Moscow, take a look and be amazed.
The power of emotional impact-especially significant in the artist’s work is the picture “Defense of Sevastopol”. this is one of the most dramatic works of the master. tragedy and heroism merge into a single piece of work. The picture is perceived as the personification of strength and the spirit of Soviet people who were ready to die for their country.
Something we didn't expect from Alexander Deineka is that he loved to participate in street fighting. He remembers his teen years where there were competitions between young men from Streletskaya Sloboda and Yamskaya Sloboda. Deineka said: “The street always made me go out for fighting. It was a law. When I was older, I came back from Kharkov to box. I went to a frozen river and thought “how foolish and gross everything was”, but then I threw away my coat and ran to the center of action. I beated and I was beaten. It was remarkable.”
REFERENCE:
OLD-KURSK.RU/BOOK/ZEMLAKI/DEYNEKA.HTML
