Tretyakov picture gallery opens seasons of great masters of 20th century

The Seasons of Great Masters of the 20th Century open in the State Tretyakov Picture Gallery on Tuesday.

The Season of Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin (1878-1939) is the first in the project and is timed to the 125th anniversary of the birthday of the outstanding artist.

The gallery in Krymsky Val displays both well-known canvases (Bathing of a Red Horse, Girls on Volga, The Year 1918 in Petrograd /Petrograd Madonna/) and drawings, which are usually kept in the museum funds and which the visitors will see for the first time.

The presentation of the virtual exhibition, The Space and the Time of Petrov-Vodkin, will also take place in the gallery. This project includes about 150 works of the artist and also the works of the masters who taught him and who are close to him in style. The commentary to the virtual exhibition contains a wide range of contemporaries' pronouncements about Petrov-Vodkin.

The combination of a broad exposition and virtual exhibitions, as well as educational programs are a distinguishing feature of the Seasons of Great Masters of the 20th Century.

The Season of Petrov-Vodkin is not accidentally the first one in the project. This artist stood on the border between the old and the new tradition in the art of the 20th century. Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin was a painter, a graphic artist, book illustrator, art critic and also a writer, playwright, script writer and a teacher. He invented a new way of depicting space on canvas - spherical perspective.

In his lifetime, his colleagues and critics assessed his art differently. His Bathing of a Red Horse (1912) was interpreted either as a hymn of a coming revolution or a forecast of a bloody drama of the First World War. However, both interpretations have been recognised as superficial now.

During the Season of Petrov-Vodkin in the Tretyakov Gallery the visitors will be able to hear the views of experts and to form their own point of view on the artist's work.