Alexander Sheversky | Figurative painter

Striking a harmonic balance between classical composition and modern disposition an original oil painting by Alexander Sheversky speaks to an appreciation for the vocation to contemporary realism. Each canvas is stately and monumental, extolling the virtues of discipline and emotion styled by the foremost of his teachers - Rembrandt and Vermeer.

The interplay of light and shadow and especially Sheversky’s inherent understanding of light bring a life to the painting that resonates and lives before the viewer.

Whether it is a figurative study or a still life its own existence is captured by the emotive values of light itself that the artist exhibits, thus embodying the living, omnipresent nature of the subject. And so a Sheversky painting espouses a marriage of the meticulous detail of classical technique to that which is clean, modern, and conceptually crisp.

Wassily Kandinsky | VII - Teoria della Pittura

Lo spirituale nell'arte, 1910

Seconda parte: La Pittura

Dalla natura della nostra armonia si deduce che oggi non si può costruire una teoria compiuta, creare un basso continuo in pittura. Questi tentativi condurrebbero in pratica allo stesso risultato dei cucchiaini di Leonardo, che citavamo prima. Ma sarebbe imprudente affermare che in pittura non esisteranno mai regole fisse, princìpi paragonabili al basso continuo, e che qualsiasi regola condurrebbe inevitabilmente all'accademismo.

Anche la musica ha una sua grammatica: una grammatica che si modifica nel tempo, come ogni cosa vivente, ma che è sempre stata utile, come una specie di vocabolario.

Wassily Kandinsky | Pond in the park

Wassily Kandinsky | VIII - L'Opera d'Arte e l'Artista, 1910

Lo spirituale nell'arte, 1910

Seconda parte: La Pittura

La vera opera d'arte nasce "dall'artista" in modo misterioso, enigmatico, mistico.

Staccandosi da lui assume una sua personalità, e diviene un soggetto indipendente con un suo respiro spirituale e una sua vita concreta.

Diventa un aspetto dell'essere. Non è dunque un fenomeno casuale, una presenza anche spiritualmente indifferente, ma ha come ogni essere energie creative, attive.

Wassily Kandinsky | Delicate tension, 1923

Wassily Kandinsky | VIII - Art and Artists

Concerning the Spiritual in Art, 1910

Part II: About painting

In an obscure and puzzling way, the artist develops a work of art. As it gains a life of its own, it becomes an entity, an independent spiritual life, which as a being, leads the life of material realism.

It is, therefore, not simply a phenomenon created casually and Inconsequentially indifferent to spiritual life.

Instead as a living being, it possesses creative active forces. It lives, has power, and actively forms the above-mentioned spiritual atmosphere.

From an innermost point of view, the question finally should be answered as to whether creation is strong or weak. If too weak in its form, it is impotent to cause any kind of spiritual vibration.

Wassily Kandinsky | Succession, 1935

Alfred Eberling (1872-1951)

Alfred Rudolfovich Eberling, was a successful painter and photographer in the early 20th century.

A pupil of Ilya Repin, he never deviated from realism (in the broad sense of the word) and left a number of striking works executed in the painterly two-dimensional manner typical of that time.

Eberling’s portraits, entirely in the spirit of salon art in terms of imagery and not devoid of a chocolate-box prettiness, were always marked by refined, often unexpected combinations of colors.

Alfred Eberling | Portrait of Ballerina Tamara Karsavina, 1911

Michail Lermontov | Il Demone, 1829 | Seconda parte

Capitolo I

"Padre, padre non minacciarmi più,

la tua Tamara non rimproverare;

vedi che piango, vedi queste lacrime

che già non sono più le prime. Invano

s'affollano, venuti da lontano,

i pretendenti per cercarmi in sposa...

Non sono poche in Gruzia le fanciulle!

Ma io non sarò sposa di nessuno!...

Mihaly von Zichy (1827-1906) Tamara and Demon

Mikhail Lermontov | Demon, 1829 | Chapter I

Demon / Демон is a poem by Mikhail Lermontov, written in several versions in the years 1829-1839.

It is considered a masterpiece of European Romantic poetry.

Lermontov began work on the poem when he was just 14 or 15, but completed it only during his Caucasus exile. Lermontov wrote six major variations of the poem, and the final version was not published until 1842, after his death.

The poem is set in Lermontov's beloved Caucasus Mountains. It opens with the eponymous protagonist wandering the earth, hopeless and troubled. He dwells in infinite isolation, his immortality and unlimited power a worthless burden. Then he spies the beautiful Georgian Princess Tamara, dancing for her wedding, and in the desert of his soul wells an indescribable emotion.

The Demon, acting as a brutal and powerful tyrant, destroys his rival: at his instigation, robbers come to despoil the wedding and kill Tamara's betrothed. The Demon courts Tamara, and Tamara knows fear, yet in him she sees not a demon nor an angel but a tortured soul.

Eventually she yields to his embrace, but his kiss is fatal.

And though she is taken to Heaven, the Demon is left again "Alone in all the universe, Abandoned, without love or hope!..."

Tamara and the Demon | Konstantin Makovsky, 1889

Wassily Kandinsky | VII - Painting Theory

Concerning the Spiritual in Art, 1910

Part II: About painting

From the nature of modern harmony, it results that never has there been a time when it was more difficult than it is today to formulate a complete theory, or to lay down a firm artistic basis.

All attempts to do so would have one result, namely, that already cited in the case of Leonardo and his system of little spoons. It would, however, be precipitate to say that there are no basic principles nor firm rules in painting, or that a search for them leads inevitably to academism. Even music has a grammar, which, although modified from time to time, is of continual help and value as a kind of dictionary.