Alexander Nikolaevich Volkov
[1] His father, Nikolai Ivanovich Volkov, was a lieutenant-general in the medical corps, and his mother, Feodosia Filippovna Volkova-Davydova, by some accounts, was a gypsy camp follower.
After moving to Uzbekistan, Volkov's works became marked by the influence of Matisse, Derain, Gauguin and Van Gogh.
In 1919 Volkov was named the first director of the State Museum of Arts of Central Asia, which had been given the former palace of the Grand Duke Constantine Romanov in Tashkent to house its collection.
[7] In 1934 Volkov went to Moscow to participate in his first big exhibition held at the State Museum of Arts of the Peoples of the Orient.
[5] Instead, referring to his generation as "nomads", he found joy in the Uzbek land, and the desert was a metaphor for the familiar and melodic, so distant from Vrubel's agonies.
[3] In his undergraduate years as a biology student at St Petersburg University, he was fascinated by the microscope and its revelation of the harmony, beauty and majesty of living matter, resulting in the crystalline structure of his compositions.
He considered his work as a contribution to the natural architecture of Uzbekistan, although he only received one major fresco commission, that of the Turkestan Pavilion at the All Russian Agricultural Exhibition in Moscow (1923).
[5] At the same time, this was a severely dissident action on the part of the artist during a period when the Bolsheviks were busy destroying houses of worship, which speaks to his adherence to the principle of freedom of individual belief.
[11] In 1923, the art historian Alexei Sidorov said of Volkov's work: ...by their rich colours and rhythm provide a description of the East which cannot be found elsewhere.
Elaborating works of primitive flatness, I have introduced a whole system of triangles and other geometric forms and arrived at the depiction of man based on the triangle, that being the simplest of forms.In view of the politicisation of Soviet art and the demands of creating a nationalist art form that was distinct from modernism, Volkov used this argument to support his use of geometry (informed by Cubo-Futurism) as an overlay on an Uzbek sensibility.
The majestic scene depicted by Volkov on canvas gives the impression of a fearless frantic force, ready to rush into battle at any time.
In the hard, inexorable rhythm of the work, the heroic spirit of the era is expressed and the pathos of the Spanish Civil War is romanticized.
The woman depicted in the picture with a red flag (talking about belonging to the Communist Party) is, of course, the revolution itself, which burst into the streets.
In this image, Delacroix managed to combine the greatness of the ancient goddess and the courage of a simple woman from the people.
Marianne (heroine of the picture of Delacroix) is the personification of the national motto of France: "Freedom, equality, brotherhood."
It must be thought that Volkov, as an artist, was inspired by the same idea and therefore sought to embody his plot in a clear visual form.
The Sun and the Caravan celebrating the 120th anniversary of the artist's birth was held at the State Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow.
[4] The highest price paid for a Volkov painting at auction is £909,000 for the Listening to the Bedana (oil on canvas, laid on board, 97.5 by 97.5 cm), sold at MacDougall's in December 2011.
