Page 23 - Каталог акварель 2019 год для печати

The Kasteyev State Museum of Arts and 1968 in Alma-Ata at the Kazakh State Gallery of
JTI Kazakhstan are running a major project titled Arts. According to the catalogue compiled by Yelena
Watercolour: Yesterday and Today. This is the first Vandrovskaya and Lyubov Plakhotnaya, that display
time the museum presents a display of watercolours comprised 207 pieces.
by Kazakhstan’s artists from the very birth of the The third republican exhibition in 1977-1978
national school until nowadays. The exhibition brings demonstrated the significant growth of painters – it
together artists from all the regions of Kazakhstan, presented 250 works by 102 artists, with more than half
and this seems important for understanding the from Almaty, almost a quarter from Karaganda, and
current situation in the country’s art landscape. It the rest from eleven regional centres.
demonstrates, in particular, how artists with very The current retrospective exhibition opens
different individualities and temperaments express with watercolour landscapes painted in the 1930s by
their talent and creativity in such a complicated and Nikolay Khludov – the bearer of the Russian tradition
multi-faceted technique. of realism. “My [ethnographic] works were mostly
Born in China in the 2nd century A.D. and brought made starting from 1884, and there was nothing
to its highs in Europe in the 18th century, watercolour, I added to or excluded from them. I sketched from
with its own means of expression and artistic language, nature or, one could say, objectively,” the artist
became an independent and important medium of explained his approach [1].
art in the 20th century. Throughout its history, this Abylkhan Kasteyev, Alexey Bortnikov, Georgiy
technique evolved in diverse directions and produced Brylov and Alexander Yevdakov, whose works are
impressive pieces, as well as inimitable styles and also presented at the exhibition, studied at Khludov’s
individual approaches – largely due to its intricacy that workshop. Watercolour became the first “tool” in their
leaves no room for corrections or alterations. artistic exploration of the world.
Watercolour uncovers the temperament of an The works by Kazakhstan’s first national
artist to the utmost, as it does with their individual style artists – Abylkhan Kasteyev, and Kozha Akhmet and
where the sense of colour acquires an unprecedented Kulakhmet Khojikovs – reflected the developments of
value. The free flow of shades, the soft gradients, the the new time when Kazakhstan made a shift from its
saturation of colouristic consonances, the active role of seminomadic way of life to a new industrial future.
paper, as well as its tone and texture – these are the Watercolour made it possible for artists to quickly
features that offer an artist an infinite variety of effects. and enthusiastically respond to the events of this new
The Kasteyev State Museum of Arts began to life and show the changes that happened at the time,
form its unique collection of watercolours from its thereby creating a new artistic scene in the country.
very foundation. In 1935, an exhibition on the occasion Kozha Akhmet’s Harvesting (1937), A Herd
of the 15th anniversary of Kazakhstan displayed 100 of Mares on a Jailau (1945-1950), In the Foothills
works by fifteen local artists. The National Gallery of (1950) were drawn as if on impulse, in confident and
Art was established based on this exhibition. unrestrained brushstrokes. The works by Kulakhmet,
The first, but not last nationwide exhibition of who was the chief artist at the Kazakhfilm studios from
Kazakhstan’s watercolourists opened on 10 December 1943, were determined by the theme of the film We Are

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