Kuindzhi's Dnieper

I have no idea why I decided to go to the Russian Landscapes exhibition at the National Gallery tonight. I have never been to Russia, never desired to go to Russia, and although Crime and Punishment is my all time favourite novel, I am ashamed to admit I have never even read Tolstoy or Chekhov. Perhaps it was the gorgeous painting on the exhibition poster that lured me in (all big skies and wide open vistas that had me hankering for the Dakotas). Perhaps it was the fact that my knowledge of Russian art involves little more than either religious icons from the middle ages or revolutionary Stalinist posters.

Actually no, I think it was the offer of free vodka cocktails that did it.

Many of the paintings in the exhibition were derivative of either 18th century Italian art (rustic, rural scenes suffused with soft golden light and groves of olive-coloured trees) or 18th century German Romanticism (heroic and wild landscapes a la Caspar David Friedrich): picture-postcard art that wouldn't look out of place in any suburban living room.

But one room dazzled and made my visit to the exhibition entirely worthwhile. Arkhip Ivanovich Kuindzhi's work presaged Expressionism by several decades. His unique handling of colour meant that the vistas he painted shivered and glowed to the point of other-worldliness. Morning on the Dnieper was like a misty, milky, translucent apparition. Whereas the same scene at night - Moonlit Night on the Dnieper - shone with such a green phosphorescence that it looked like it had been electrified from behind (indeed, when the artist originally exhibited this painting in 1880 against a black curtain and under artificial lighting, visitors were so convinced it had been lit from behind that they kept trying to peer behind the canvas).

Kuindzhi is certainly worth more investigation.

Other links today:
+ Even the Mona Lisa's smile wears thin after a trillion cheap posters
+ Abundance is the curse of classical recording. Enter any classical store or website and you will be overwhelmed by repetition - the same works, done over and over again.