Igor Delitsin and Pavel Leonov - IDILL Automatic translate

“I just can’t understand why people attach such great importance to this insignificant period of time between childhood and old age.” (From the film by Ingmar Bergman “Fanny and Alexander”)

The gallery "Rosa Azora hosts the exhibition" IDILLA "by Igor Delitsin and Pavel Leonov. The exhibition runs from September 21 to October 6.

Pavel Petrovich Leonov and Igor Sergeyevich Delitsin are peers, they were born with a difference of only three years.

We studied from the same books, listened to the same songs, played the same games. Their adventurous lives are even similar - only as if reflected in a mirror, as in the old Soviet fairy tale “Kingdom of Crooked Mirrors” about the girls Yalo and Olya.

Leonov is an epic character, with all those traits that horrify and delight us in the Russian people. Beaten, unlearned, served and unsettled, he firmly believed in his chosenness and high mission. A village philosopher, author of an absurd but grandiose utopia, the scope and talent of which is admired. Having grown old, he completely surrendered to painting and selflessly took up the task of realizing his dream in paintings-instructions for the improvement of the world.

In this world of endless celebration, everything is beautiful and joyful. Fountains beat, palaces turn white, gardens turn green, happy citizens sing and dance to their favorite symphonies. The Virgin Mary gathers flowers in the forest, and birds and angels soar in the sky, and the author himself, in a white full dress, solemnly and cheerfully steps from picture to picture.

His gigantic canvases amaze not only with their spontaneity and beauty, but also with the frankness of the author, which shows in every work, a feeling not at all rare among children, but among adult artists it is, unfortunately, very rare.

His workshop was a garden, the easel was a cart. There Pavel Petrovich sang and wrote. He always sang at work.

Igor Sergeyevich Delitsin is a man of another world, an intellectual of “Soviet cut”.

You might even think that Igor Sergeyevich, the hero of Pavel Petrovich’s paintings, actually “Arrived”, he was actually “Met”.

Studying, traveling, friends, changing professions and cities. The hero of the war, a scientist, he was handsome, as if descended from the screen of Soviet cinema, and of course, enjoyed tremendous success among women. Everything, whatever he undertook, brought good luck and recognition.

As a child, he wanted to become an artist, but somehow did not work out. Upon retiring, Igor Sergeyevich became seriously ill. Having survived a clinical death, while still in the hospital, he asked to bring plasticine, blinded his first head - and since then his life has changed. By the age of seventy, Igor Sergeyevich finally realized his old dream - he became an artist.

He did not like to talk about his early years. His father, "from the nobles," was arrested and shot. Mom got married again, and the boy grew up with his stepfather. Perhaps childhood was not quite easy… But the memory is amazing! Often she destroys all the bitter and leaves everything only good. I recall a life without difficulties and pain, ideal and not quite real.

Taking up the sculpture, Igor Sergeyevich materialized his fictional childhood paradise, populating it with boys and girls, young ladies and gentlemen, grandmothers, reliable men, moms, “expecting a miracle” - heroes who embody the author’s ideal ideas about how everything should really be.

It’s impossible to name his toys strange people - they are not for playing. These are sculptures - with an appetizing rough surface of papier-mâché, very simply and concisely painted and delicately interacting with space.

The most attractive, strange and even eerie in his works, which make them truly interesting, is the combination of his characters in their thirties - as if they were made by the hand of a person of that time - with the sentimentality of Soviet children’s folklore and the meticulous execution characteristic of a man who took up business with in all seriousness.

Looking at his work, one involuntarily recalls the automatons of Pierre Jaquet-Droz, who deceived time. Now a humanoid creature is sitting in front of you, but, being in front of your eyes, it stays in the 18th century and displays a drawing with the gesture of a draftsman 250 years ago.

In 2011, Pavel Petrovich Leonov and Igor Sergeyevich Delitsin died.

The terrible and wonderful era of the Great Soviet Country, about which they each, in their own way, inspired and talented, has passed away.

Each of them came up with his own idyll. Own country.

Elena Yazykova-Castillo