Miniatures of Anatoly Konenko at the Ryazan Art Museum

On August 9, the opening of an exhibition of miniatures by contemporary Siberian artist Anatoly Konenko took place. Studying his work, an analogy arises with the story of the master Lefty, who managed to shoe a flea. Despite such a small format, each work presented is amazing in its subtlety.

It took the artist more than thirty years to achieve perfection in such an unusual form of creativity. However, the result is simply amazing - putting an image of a modern car on a poppy seed seems like an impossible task. But many years of practice and sincere interest have done their job. Among the works presented in the collection, most can be seen only with the help of powerful microscopes or photographs magnified hundreds of times.

The exhibition gains special charm thanks to the author’s extreme attentiveness to nature in general and to the insect world in particular. Each time the work begins with the desire to show how beautiful seemingly insignificant things can be. How they need to be treated with care, how many wonderful discoveries can give those who bother to even notice them.

However, many images on ivory do not wear such an “instructive” direction, but simply delight the eye and soul. Amazing portraits of famous poets, a collection of mini-books, sculptures and wooden objects, are created, as if specifically to remind people of how significant things can be that at first glance may go unnoticed.

Everyone will be able to see the “great in the small” until mid-September 2012.

Eve Istr