Fantasia. 1925 Kuzma Sergeevich Petrov-Vodkin (1878-1939)

A description of Kuzma Petrov Vodkin’s painting Fantasia

Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin’s creations were a weighty contribution to Russian painting. His striking work, Fantasia, echoes other famous paintings in color and motifs.

But "Fantasia" is original and inimitable; the feelings and thoughts behind it are distinguished by strong emotional charge and depth.

The canvas was created in 1925. At the height of his creative powers the artist presents a new masterpiece to the world. Nature landscape with urban landscape acts as a background. Smooth and rhythmic brush strokes. The background colors are calm, consistent with the natural. Green, blue and shades of brown are diluted with white stripes.

The central character of the painting is a young man sitting on a scarlet horse. The horse’s bright red color captures the main attention. It acts as a revolutionary, fiery, impetuous color. The figure of the animal is hovering in a jump, it seems to be soaring above the ground. The red horse is interpreted as a symbol of the October Revolution itself. So significant was this event for the Russian artist, and for the fate of the country.

Unusual is the character of composition. In the picture there are practically no strict horizontal and vertical lines. Instead of them the painter took the basis of oblique axes. Mountains, outlines of plains, even feather clouds are ruled chaotically. The effect gives dynamics to the image and makes the entire space of the composition spherical.

Symbolic painting by Petrov-Vodkin magnificently reflects the mood of the epoch. The red horse as a sign of the new fiery revolution, he is in the painting "Fantasia" aspiring to the heavenly heights, to hitherto unknown discoveries and peaks.

The simple and laconic background is combined in the painting with a fantastic main figure. As a result, the image seems poetic, sublime and mysteriously appealing.