Yelena Terkel

Yelena Terkel
Maria Yakunchikova-Weber. "I YEARN FOR TENDERNESS, AND NOT THIS GREY AND RAW PROSE"

#3 2020 (68)

One of Yakunchikova’s first biographers, the poet and artist Maximilian Voloshin, noted that her works had profoundly personal beginnings. The heroine of the etchings “is always herself, forever the same, svelte and sad, and you keep the vision of her arms, powerless and thin like the boughs of a birch swaying in the blue sky”. Yakunchikova once created a composition entitled “Reflet intime” (Reflection of an Intimate World) and this intimate world can be felt in most of her works, but “the reflection is too real”, as Voloshin put it. The personal and the creative are inseparable for the artist. Her works are made up of sensations and anxieties and everything is an emotional investment, everything is hard won.

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Yelena Terkel
Vasily Polenov’s "The Patient". THE STORY OF GRIEF BEHIND THE PAINTING

#3 2019 (64)

“The Patient” differs significantly from the rest of Vasily Polenov’s work. A sophisticated landscape artist who also painted a number of works on New Testament themes, Polenov was fond of open spaces and light colours - his work, with few exceptions, feels imbued with joy, with positive emotions. “The Patient” is one such exception. He worked on the painting for some 13 years, during which time it closely reflected his personal sufferings: the artist was inspired by the loss of people to whom he was very close, both to begin the piece and later to resume work on it.

HERITAGE

Yelena Terkel
Ilya Repin in Paris. STAGES IN THE ARTIST’S ENGAGEMENT WITH THE CITY OF LIGHTS

#1 2019 (62)

Historically, Paris has proved irresistible to many of Russia’s greatest cultural figures - artists, writers and musicians alike. Vibrant and inspirational, simultaneously ancient and contemporary, it has always been a place of celebration, love and beauty. Ilya Repin visited Paris on various occasions in the last three decades of the 19 th century, leaving behind a fascinating record of the rich variety of experiences, both personal and artistic, that he found there.

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Yelena Terkel
Léon Bakst and the Writer: of the Russian Silver Age

#2 2017 (55)

A prominent artist of the Silver Age of Russian culture, Léon (Lev Samoilovich) Bakst was also a notable figure in the literary community of his time. He was acquainted with, or a friend of many writers and poets whose portraits he painted and whose books he illustrated.

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Yelena Terkel
Valentin Serov and Leon Bakst. Seeking an ideal

#3 2015 (48)

Valentin Serov (1865-1911) appeared reserved, earnest, and sombre; Leon Bakst (1866-1924) was vibrant, unpredictable and a little funny - a dedicated dandy. What was it that brought together these two artists, so unlike one another? Why did their fondness for one another grow in the years after they met while publishing “Mir Iskusstva” (World of Art) magazine? The answer seems simple and complicated at the same time: deep down, they were looking for something indiscernibly similar. While their public personas were so different, both used them to protect their respective creative selves from the rude intrusions of outsiders. Both artists were successful and famous, each in his own unique way; both were chasing their dreams and looking for new paths and expressions, while remaining honest and true to themselves in their artistic pursuits.

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Yelena Terkel
The Return. On the Occasion of the 70th Anniversary of the Tretyakov Gallery’s Re-opening after World War II

#2 2015 (47)

THE GREAT PATRIOTIC WAR WAS A TREMENDOUS UPHEAVAL FOR BOTH THE TRETYAKOV GALLERY AND THE ENTIRE COUNTRY. MARKING THE 70TH ANNIVERSARY OF VICTORY, WE ALSO CELEBRATE THE ANNIVERSARY OF THE GALLERY'S RE-OPENING AFTER ITS RETURN TO MOSCOW FROM EVACUATION.

Yelena Terkel
Alexander Golovin's Works at the Chizhov Agricultural Vocational School in Kologriv

Papers of the International academic conference "ALEXANDER GOLOVIN AND THE CULTURE OF THE SILVER AGE" (14.10.2014 - 15.10.2014, State Tretyakov Gallery)

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Yelena Terkel
"Your Work is Somehow True..." Alexander Golovin and Yelena Polenova

#3 2014 (44)

WHEN WE LOOK AT PAINTINGS, WE OFTEN WONDER WHAT THE ARTIST WAS LIKE IN REAL LIFE, WHAT EXCITED HIM, WHAT KIND OF PEOPLE SURROUNDED HIM, WHAT INSPIRED HIM TO CREATE HIS MASTERPIECES. IT IS NOT ALWAYS EASY TO FIND ANSWERS TO THESE QUESTIONS, EITHER IN THE ARTIST'S WORKS OR IN EXPERT STuDIES Of HIS OR HER OEuVRE. MEMOIRS AND CORRESPONDENCE SOMETIMES HELP US LIFT THE VEIL OF MYSTERY. ALEXANDER GOLOVIN'S OWN "ENCOUNTERS AND IMPRESSIONS", PUBLISHED BY ERICH GOLLERBAKH, OUTLINED THE EXPERIENCES OF THE ARTIST'S LIFE; HE FOCUSED ON CULTURAL EVENTS, ON HIS ASSESSMENT OF VARIOUS PERSONALITIES AND PHENOMENA, BUT MUCH LESS ON HIS REFLECTIONS ON ART. THE ARTIST'S INNER WORLD AND HIS CREATIVE PROCESS REMAIN ALMOST ALWAYS "OFF THE RECORD".

John E. Bowlt, Anna Chernukhina, Olga Kovaleva, Elena Terkel
“Words of Magic”: The Literary Heritage of Léon Bakst

#1 2008 (18)

Of the many artists of the Russian Silver Age Léon Bakst (Lev Samoilovich Rozenberg, 1866-1924) deserves the highest acclaim for his contribution to both studio painting and the decorative arts. Among Russian stage designers, he enjoyed - and continues to enjoy - the widest recognition for legendary productions such as Cléopatre, Schéhérazade, Le Dieu Bleu and The Sleeping Princess, in which he astounded audiences with munificence of colour, tactile form and exposure of the dynamic force of the human body.