"Plein airs in the national park" Ugra ""

The Kaluga Museum of Fine Arts (104 Lenin St., exhibition hall) will host the exhibition “Plein airs in the Ugra National Park”, which is an important stage in the implementation of a joint project conducted by members of the Kaluga branch of the Union of Artists of the Russian Federation (G.K. Tabakov) and the administration of the Ugra National Park (chief specialist V.P. Karpova) since 2014.

Its task is to organize and conduct open-airs in protected areas of the Kaluga Territory, one of which is the territory of the Ugra National Park. Poetry of Central Russian nature, historical and cultural monuments located in the national park attract artists to work in these places. The first plein air was held on the initiative of the Honored Artist of the Russian Federation V.A. Arepieva.

Plein air - plein ais - translated from French literally “open air”. This term means the artist’s work on a painting in the open air, and not in the workshop. The works created by this method transmit on canvas all the color richness of nature, truthfully reflect the variability of color in nature under the influence of light and air. The principles of plein air painting developed in the 19th century in the work of artists of the Barbizon school and impressionists. In the second half of the XIX century. plein air painting took an important place in the work of Russian artists.

The tradition of holding plein airs is very popular among contemporary artists, but it is not limited only to the work in the open air itself. The objectives of this project are to display in the works of historical, cultural and landscape objects of the Kaluga Region, to increase interest in the visual arts of the modern audience, to conduct master classes, creative meetings with professional artists in the province, transfer the created works to the funds of local museums.

The stage of the project is the holding of an exhibition, which presents more than a hundred works by artists who took part in open air in the Ugra National Park for several years. The beauty and picturesque surroundings of Ugra, Zhizdra and Vyssa, architectural monuments is the main content of the landscapes and sketches presented at the exhibition. The exhibition features works by V.N. Alekseev, Honored Artist of the Russian Federation V.A. Arepieva A.G. Zhlabovich, S.N. Zolotareva, V.V. Krasilnikova, V.I. Cousin, O.A. Kuzminova, A.S. Sizova, N.V. Smolina, I.V. Yatsenko. Despite the fact that all the authors are representatives of a realistic school of painting, they painted from nature in some places, their works differ in their artistic vision, originality of creative handwriting, coloristic solutions, through which the creative individuality of each artist is expressed. All this emphasizes the uniqueness and diversity of the works presented in the exposition.

I.V. Guzhova, Senior Researcher