About art: this post may offend your religious feelings

Today I visited the Novosibirsk Art Gallery. Yes, I periodically go there, look, think... And today a couple of thoughts came to my mind. The first thought is degradation. When you look at European paintings of the Renaissance period or paintings of Classicism, our “Peredvizhniki” look somehow more dull in terms of technique and scrupulous rendering of details. Soviet socialist realism is already losing to the “Peredvizhniki”, and then “Modern Art” began... In addition, the “First International Novosibirsk Triennial of Contemporary Graphics” is now open at the Art Gallery. The exhibition is large-scale, high-quality, representative, but after viewing classical art it looks very doubtful, especially in terms of technology, that is, the further you go, the more obvious that most artists don’t want to bother, and some finally print their “paintings” on printers. Of course, judging the quality of art is the last thing, but it just so happens, apparently you can’t mix such different things on one territory (even a large one): for sovriska you need to look for more suitable spaces, and not the walls of an Art Gallery.

The second thought is only about Russian art. You look at European paintings from the 16th, 17th, 18th centuries, you see a variety of schools, themes, genres... and then you go into the halls with a Russian Orthodox icon, and what’s there? That's right - ICONS! Icons from the 16th, 17th, 18th centuries. That is, while artistic life was in full swing in Europe, styles and directions were changing, new genres were appearing, only ICONS were in full swing in Rus'! Apparently the then Russian Orthodox Church had the art world in Russia firmly in its grip. By the way, I am very skeptical about icons; I practically don’t consider it art, rather a craft. Most of the artists who painted (painted) icons are simply people busy repeating some CANON (that is, they simply copy from each other). And, finally, a frightening trend is the constant attacks of the Russian Orthodox Church on the modern art world, and if they are not somehow brought to their senses, then centuries of icon painting will soon come again in the Russian Federation.