Meet with art

Story by Vladimir Burchakov

It’s not a Florence, not Paris, not Barcelona, not Madrid, not St-Petersburg where I met the most beautiful piece of art. The place where that piece is kept – North Carolina Museum of Art in Raleigh (no kidding). The masterpiece is marble sculpture of Venus Italica by Antonio Canova. In the museum it used to stand in dark room with soft light. The light and shadows emphases beautiful shapes and texture of the statue. When look at it you better understand what means idiom “marble skin” and why ancient Greeks adore the sculptures and the artists who created them. I saw plenty of ancient marble sculptures in different art museums in the world. Most of them authentic and very old came from ages of Greece and Roman Empire. They have yellowish colors and many of them polished with innumerous touches of hands. But this Venus is relatively new, – about 200 years old. And amazingly matte Carrara marble without any strings added reality to this masterpiece. Needless to say that I try to date that beautiful lady as often as I could.

North Carolina Museum of Art is a nice place to spend a time of your weekend and get familiar with classical and modern art. One thing was a bit confusing; if many museums have main stairs lead up to the exposition, in that museum it goes down to lower level, where main classical art masterpieces have been collected. Few years ago there new addition to the museum, – West building,- have been built. It even less looks like gallery of arts, but more like a greenhouse. Though it has much more space and light for exhibits. My beautiful Venus have also been moved to the new building. And I rushed to meet her as soon as new building was open to public. Now it stand in main hall of the museum, in center of exposition how the best piece of sculptures’ collection suppose to be. But, what was disappointing, it lost among the others. And most of all – the mystery of play lights and shadows diapered. It became just very beautiful sculpture, but one of those which I’ve already seen in other museums.

To illustrate my story and confirm the slogan “ the newer is not the better” I attach few pictures.

Another thoughts came when I met this masterpiece of A. Canova. Yes, I’ve heard about the ancient myth when an artist fell in love with it’s creature. Though name Pygmalion mainly associated with known play of Bernard Show, when I enjoyed with sculpture of Venus I thought that the story of Pygmalion and Galatea may happened. And I started to believe how it could happened when saw wonderful painting by J. Gerome in Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. I am not sending the picture of this painting as you can easily find it in the web. Just type: “Pygmalion and Galatea” by Gerome.

I have weak drawing. As a result I avoid to paint people and faces. I saw some of your demo videos. They show that Natalia and Vladimir have strong skill in drawing and I wish to learn that techniques. Human body, head, hands etc.

I have two significant reasons why people should vote for me: Respect my age. I am 60 years old and not retied yet. So weekends I can only spend on my classes in the Academy. Second reason – On the weekends I am ready to sacrifice what I like most (besides painting and photography) – fishing.