While recently reading some art magazines from the 1930s, I came across the work of Alexander Deineka, a wonderful Soviet painter whose works I hadn't seen before.
There's something incredibly seductive about Deineka's paintings from the 1930s-- although he later became synonymous with propaganda works celebrating proletariat workers and the Red Army, his earlier works also portray quiet scenes of youth and family.
The most striking element of Deineka's work is the light. So often paintings of Soviet life are shrouded in grey mists, or we imagine only black and red propaganda posters and Cyrillic agitation. To see these brightly illuminated, almost glowing scenes is captivating-- especially within the context of their creation. Some paintings feature near-impressionist sprays of light and water, others include the soft morning light of life before the dew dries. I was incredibly moved when I saw these paintings in the black and white pages of the old magazines, and to see them in color only makes them lovelier.
