Geliy Mikhailovich Korzhev (1925-2012) - Soviet artist, according to many art historians, a bright representative of the "severe style". In his paintings he depicted strong feelings and borderline situations - tragedies, devastation after the loss of loved ones, situations in the war, where he paid attention not to the bravura-parade glorification of heroes and their exploits, but to the truth of life.
Seeing off
Painted paintings on the subject of Stalinist repressions, almost unbearable conditions of existence of convicts. Displayed unvarnished and harsh Soviet life, when the most basic things were lacking, and food was cooked on kerosinka and kerogazov.
Korzhev had the ability to write very convincing pictures, but at the same time they did not feel the bleak hopelessness, he was not a "poet of blackness", just reliably conveyed life itself, not parade and official representations of it. However, there were in his work paintings depicting the labor impulse and classic themes for socialist realism.
A glass of milk
However, Korzhev himself did not consider himself a social realist, but called the style in which he worked, "social realism", and tried to convey the thoughts, desires and feelings of his characters, their state of mind, that is, set a task incomparably more complex than the usual for many other ordinary social realist artists display of Soviet successes in labor and the construction of communism.
Lovers
Helius Korzhev's father was a landscape architect Mikhail Korzhev, it was with his participation were designed and created all the major parks of the capital, including Izmailovsky and Central Park of Culture and Recreation. That is, he belonged to the Moscow creative elite, so for Helius opened excellent opportunities for training, good he showed good drawing abilities from childhood. He went to a children's drawing studio, then learned to draw at the artist Antonina Sergeeva, who in his time studied at Serov and Konstantin Yuon and, finally, in the Moscow art school, where he was admitted immediately to the third grade.
During the Second World War Korzhev graduated from sniper training courses, but never made it to the front. The higher authorities decided that capable art school students should be saved, so they were sent to Bashkiria, where they spent two years in an ordinary village
By the mirror
For Korzhev this trip opened many things, he wrote: "the true beauty in nature, in ordinary people who live their, at first glance, unpretentious and boring life, but you should look at them more closely, you are surprised by the depth and variety of feelings and emotions they have.
- "These two years without all kinds of exhibitions and museums have been as productive for me creatively as all my studies in Moscow".
On the road
After the war Korzhev finished his studies at the Moscow Art Institute, with Sergei Gerasimov.
Korzhev presented his first painting to the audience in 1954, the artwork was liked by many, so Korzhev, not without the assistance of Gerasimov was accepted into the Union of Artists.
In the days of war
Soon came and the first recognition. Korzhev was released abroad, he visited Syria, France, Italy, where he could see many masterpieces of painting.
True, he had to write as it was supposed to, although even in those paintings felt the author's style Korzhev, sharpened on the thoughts and feelings of ordinary people, albeit under the shell of socialist realism. Such is the triptych Communists, which has become one of his most recognizable artworks. There is no varnishing of reality, the heroes are harsh and courageous, and their determination to go to the end arouses respect.
Raising the Banner
This triptych established Korzhev as an iconic artist who is allowed more than others. He often travels abroad on creative business, participates in major international exhibitions.
In 1964 Korzhev was offered a professorship at the Moscow Art Institute, where he worked for 22 years, creating new and impressive artwork.
Egorka the flyer
Gradually Korzhev began to write completely different pictures, infinitely far from the usual and cultivated socialist realism. Such is the cycle "Turliki", which Korzhev began to work on in 1985 and continued until the mid-90s. There was also an impressive painting "Don Quixote" - few people have ever managed to portray this "knight of the sad image" so authentically.
Don Quixote
Korzhev worked especially long and carefully on the paintings of the Biblical cycle, rewriting each of them many times, achieving maximum expressiveness. And, frankly speaking, all these efforts were not in vain.
Exile from Paradise
Korzhev lived a good life, writing many original paintings, which even now will leave few people indifferent.
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