In Taganrog, the Central City Public Library named after A.P. Chekhov in its Concert and Exhibition Hall (Petrovskaya St., 96) presents an art exhibition of the International Plein Air Project “Russian Atlantis”.
The exhibition includes over 40 works by Russian and foreign painters from the Art and Exhibition Fund of the Autonomous Non-Profit Organization “St. Petersburg Center for Humanitarian Programs”, created based on the results of the plein airs “Russian Atlantis” over 10 years (2013-2022). Monasteries, temples, and the nature of the Russian province are presented to the audience.
The project “Russian Atlantis” is being implemented by the ANO “St. Petersburg Center for Humanitarian Programs” in partnership with the VTOO “Union of Artists of Russia” and the IPO “Petrovskaya Academy of Sciences and Arts” within the framework of the public educational program “Continuity”, which promotes the actualization of memory and awareness of the value of small Motherland.
The opening of the exhibition was attended by the author and project manager Vitaly Vasiliev, the dean of the parishes of the Taganrog district, Priest Boris Gushchin, and the curator of the exhibition Ulyana Sitnikova.
As the author and director of the project, full member of the Petrovsky Academy of Sciences and Arts, Honored Worker of Culture of the Russian Federation, General Director of the ANO “St. Petersburg Center for Humanitarian Programs” Vitaly Vasiliev, said, the main objects of the exhibition’s artistic canvases are Orthodox monasteries. The main semantic image of the project was the Kalyazin bell tower of the Church of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker, which was blown up and flooded during the years of implementation of the GOELRO plan, as a symbol of the inescapability and unsinkability of Russia.
The defining direction of development of the “Russian Atlantis” project is partnership with the Russian Orthodox Church. With the blessing and patronage of Archimandrite Arkady (Gubanov), rector of the Nilo-Stolobensk Hermitage, in 2013 the doors of several monasteries of the Tver diocese, and subsequently of churches and monasteries throughout Russia, opened for artists. Today, the “Russian Atlantis” project is the only example in the country of how issues of cooperation between church and society in the spiritual and educational sphere through fine art can be successfully resolved in large-scale forms over many years. The project covers over 50 monasteries and church parishes throughout Russia.
In total, during the existence of the #RussianAtlantis project from April 2013 to the present, over a hundred plein airs, more than 50 master classes and creative meetings have been held. Artists (over a thousand people in total) from 24 countries and 155 cities in Russia took part in the project. 87 final exhibitions were held in cities of Russia, as well as Italy, Germany, France, Switzerland, and eight exhibitions took place in India.
In his speech, Vitaly Vasiliev also expressed gratitude to the Taganrog artist Vladimir Chernousov – for his enthusiasm and professionalism, for his initiative and assistance in creating the exhibition in Chekhovka.
The dean of the parishes of the Taganrog district, the rector of the St. George Church, Priest Boris Gushchin, emphasized that the presented project has a very important spiritual and educational mission. The paintings created as a result of artistic expeditions to monasteries and small towns of Russia tell about the beauty of God’s world and fill the souls of viewers with spiritual joy.
The curator of the exhibition, a member of the Creative Union of Artists of Russia and the Union of Artists of the Moscow Region, Ulyana Sitnikova, in an exclusive interview with Taganrog Pravda, noted that the opening of the exhibition in Taganrog was held at the highest level – thanks to the presenter Oksana Serbina and the Russian song choir of the Taganrog Music College, led by Natalia Anikina, who was invited by her . And after the official opening of the exhibition, Vitaly Vasiliev, himself a musician by first education (he graduated from the Military Conducting Faculty of the Moscow State Tchaikovsky Conservatory), was happy to personally meet the choir accompanist Sergei Zatsarenko.
Let us note that for our city “Russian Atlantis” is especially close and relevant. Before the revolution, Taganrog shone with the domes of many churches and cathedrals, we also had a monastery, but only two churches survived the Soviet atheistic era…
The exhibition will continue until October 27 (daily except Friday).
Vladimir PROZOROVSKY.
Photo by the author and Svetlana Grigorishina
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