Outstanding contemporary artist Semyon Afanasyevich Chuykov
In the post-war period, as in previous times, painting achieves significant success. The interest of artists in genre works reflecting the labor and everyday life of Soviet people increases even more. The theme of labor reflected the creative pathos and labor enthusiasm of Soviet people engaged in the restoration of the national economy.
The most significant achievements in the field of genre painting, not only in Kyrgyzstan, are associated with the name of the outstanding contemporary artist Semyon Afanasyevich Chuykov. His talent manifests in many genres, but he achieves particular perfection in thematic paintings. The creativity of Chuykov, who became closely acquainted with the customs and unique lifestyle of the Kyrgyz in his childhood, is permeated with love for the native nature and people of the republic. A deep understanding of life and persistent searches for independent creative solutions contributed to the revelation of the artist's individuality. Many of Chuykov's works are dedicated to the theme of collective farm labor and collective farm life. His paintings are filled with subtle lyricism and a lofty sense of love for people.
S. A. Chuykov is an artist of joyful perception of the world. He celebrates the spiritual and physical beauty of simple workers, noting the national traits and spiritual makeup of the people of Soviet Kyrgyzstan in his heroes. Chuykov often turns to small-figure compositions, paying significant attention to color, which is characterized by extreme richness, sonority, and harmony. His creativity is characterized by a focus on series of canvases, driven by the desire to reveal more fully and deeply the theme that has captivated him. This allows the artist to uncover new aspects of the common theme for the entire cycle in each individual painting. Each canvas within this cycle complements the others without losing its independent significance.
In 1939-1948, S. A. Chuykov created the "Kyrgyz Collective Farm Suite," dedicated to collective farm life, which summarized a large and interesting material collected over several years. The idea for these paintings was long in the making, as evidenced by numerous studies and sketches that preceded their appearance. The cycle embodies a wonderful knowledge of the life of the people and an inseparable connection with them. Here, life of the liberated people is widely celebrated through specific poetic images.
In 1948, the "Kyrgyz Collective Farm Suite" was exhibited in Moscow at a special personal exhibition of Chuykov. The paintings "Song" (1945), "Morning" (1947), "Evening" (1947), "Noon" (1944-1947), and "Daughter of Soviet Kyrgyzstan" (1948) attract close attention in the "Collective Farm Suite." While the artist's early works such as "Boy with a Fish" (1929), "Kyrgyz Uprising of 1916" (1936), and several studies from that time often retain the local color of objects, further development follows the line of complicating the coloristic system. The enrichment of color becomes characteristic of the paintings "Hunter with a Golden Eagle" (1938), "Portrait of Kalik Akiev" (1939), "Toktogul among the People" (1941), and finds brilliant expression in the "Kyrgyz Collective Farm Suite."
"Song" is the first work in the series. It is characteristic of Chuykov's creativity both in compositional structure and in pictorial solution. In this work, the song has not only a plot significance. The songful essence is embedded in the very imagery of the painting and in its color. This songfulness in the interpretation of the image will also be observed in several other paintings by Chuykov ("Evening," "Evening in the Herd," etc.). Nature determines the contemplative mood of a person, conveying the state of a quiet, gentle evening. In "Noon," the space is flooded with scorching sunlight. Light flickers and trembles on the shaded haystack, on the faces of children, sparkling as a bright spot on the ground, illuminating the distant expanses of the valley.
In the depiction of female figures, the author achieved great plastic expressiveness. The pose of the reclining woman, resting her head on the knees of another, is conveyed with extraordinary subtlety. The lively movements of children enjoying watermelon in the bright, blinding sun, contrasting with the stillness of the women, further emphasize the state of tranquility. The girl standing with a slice of watermelon in her hands generally resembles the "Girl with a Watermelon," painted back in 1941. Later, this motif will lead to "Daughter of Soviet Kyrgyzstan" (1948) and "Daughter of the Shepherd" (1956). This is explained by the fact that for Chuykov, as his creativity developed, constant searches for the plasticity of the human figure became characteristic. By finding individual poses and gestures of his heroes, the artist transfers them from painting to painting, discarding everything superfluous that hinders the holistic, concentrated embodiment of the images until the found motif is perfected.
"Morning" (1947) is one of the outstanding canvases. There is nothing unusual in the plot. But the author saw the poetic, elevated, and great beauty in the simple, everyday scene and celebrated it, demonstrating himself as a great master of composition, drawing, and color. The painting is constructed in such a way that everything contributes to the highlighting of the main monumental figure of the woman with the child. The artist uses a unique technique: the image of the woman dominates the landscape, contrasting the large scale of the figures in the foreground with the deep space of the background. This goal dictates the compositional solution. The drawing in the painting is refined and flexible. Color plays a significant role in it. Against the backdrop of a cold sky, the figure of the woman is sharply outlined in a warm pink dress contrasting with the sky. The shadow on the dress, shaping a generalized dense form, reaches hot red-brown tones, where it is intensified by bluish reflections on the illuminated parts of the figure, creating a complex pictorial structure that conveys the state of the object in plein air, changing local coloring into a complex pictorial fabric.
Thus, color here has not just a decorative significance: it expressively conveys the forms of the female body. In this painting, the artist has shown himself as a wonderful painter and master of composition.
All his works are resolved in plein air, combining genre with landscape. Chuykov clearly constructs spatial planes without resorting to the techniques of illusionistic painting. He seeks rhythmic correspondences in composition, in the relationship of figures to each other, which is evident in both "Noon" and "Evening" of the same "Collective Farm Suite."
"Daughter of Soviet Kyrgyzstan" is one of S. A. Chuykov's best creations; this painting, like all the works of the suite, possesses independence and completeness of artistic solution. A concise, simple single-figure composition. A low horizon, a large scale of the girl's figure, a successfully found silhouette, and a slow, calm rhythm of movement contribute to the creation of a generalized, monumental image. The face is sculpted with great mastery, and the lightness of the girl's walk and the flexibility of her waist are conveyed with extraordinary subtlety. Her face expresses determination and calm confidence. The harmony of man and nature, their organic fusion is facilitated by the coloristic solution. The color is mainly built on the combination of bright tones of red and blue. The ringing combination of colors corresponds to the transmission of the cheerful, restrainedly joyful mood of the heroine. The blue sky and blue-lilac mountains harmonize with the blue velvet vest and lilac reflections on the girl's white dress. The vest is given in a deep blue color, which seems to concentrate all shades of blue in the painting. The bright red color of the scarf, echoing the blush of her cheeks and contrasting with the blackness of her hair, further emphasizes the health and vitality of the young face. Moreover, the red color enlivens the overall color scheme, making all tones resonate with the greatest strength. Subtle transitions of color nuances of red, pearlescent, blue, and yellow allow the viewer to feel the forms of the body and the texture of the clothing. Chuykov builds light-shadow reflections on the change of tone while maintaining related colors. For Chuykov, shadow is not just a darkening of a specific part of the painting, but a peculiar pictorial solution that acquires special beauty and expressiveness.
In the painting "Daughter of Soviet Kyrgyzstan," which possesses epic traits, the image of the Kyrgyz girl symbolizes Soviet Kyrgyzstan and its people. In the "Kyrgyz Collective Farm Suite," the artist's ability to comprehend and generalize specific material, to select the most characteristic, typical, and essential from it, is reflected. This cycle is a lyrical song about the people of the republic, their everyday selfless labor, and its beautiful nature—it has entered the golden fund of Soviet art. After the "Kyrgyz Collective Farm Suite," S. Chuykov created the painting "Collective Farm Harvest" (1949). In the charming and tender appearance of the woman, a typical image of the modern Kyrgyz woman is generalized. Her face expresses high spirituality, and the silhouette is pure and clear. This expressiveness is enhanced by the heavily falling folds of the tucked-up skirt, almost in an antique interpretation. Every detail plays a specific role in revealing the internal content of the painting. One such detail is, for example, the beautifully painted transparent jug of water from which the woman quenches her thirst. A. S. Chuykov visited India three times (1952, 1957, 1968). This had great significance in strengthening the influence of Soviet art abroad. He was one of the first Soviet artists to reflect the life of the people of this country in his works. In such paintings as "On the Way" (1954), "Sweeper from Jaipur" (1954), "Song of the Kuli" (1954), "Evening Reflection" (1957), and others, the spiritual world of simple workers in India is poetically revealed with fine insight.
The poetry of Chuykov owes much to his extensive and long-standing work on landscapes, which are an integral part of the artist's creativity. He poetically celebrates the majestic silhouettes of mountain ridges, the boundless expanses of valleys and pastures, bathed in sun and air. Thus, the landscape "Autumn Jailoo" (1945) also possesses a narrative beginning. It is a semi-genre, semi-landscape painting. In this work, people and nature have equal rights; nothing is emphasized, i.e., the landscape is not only the background of the action but a direct form of its manifestation. Such epic canvases as "In My Native Lands" (1948), "In the Fields of Kyrgyzstan" (1948), "The Bread Has Ripe" (1948), "At the Foot of the Tien Shan" (1950), imbued with deep philosophical content, also retain a genre, narrative beginning. Chuykov's landscapes are characterized by monumentality and a combination of the epic and the lyrical.