Abstract paintings at Moscow Conservatory:

“Russian Snow”

«RUSSIAN SNOW»

Musical canvases

Russian people
With eyes of ash color
So long do they wait for spring
灰色の目のロシア人春待てり
Khidetake Kavaradzi

In the context of the exhibition, “snow” is a metaphor while “Russian” is a polytonym. For a person living in Russia, snow is more than a meteorological phenomenon, winter is not only “frost and sun”.
“Russian snow” is different: from dazzling white and fluffy, as on a January morning, to icy dirty grey as during for most of the Moscow winter lasting from late November until April.

Pink, purple, blue… it shines and dazzles with its whiteness and virgin purity, covers and comforts, delights and mesmerises; it becomes an element of magic, as in many fairy-tales (“The Silver Hoof”, “Twelve Months”, “The Nutcracker”); it melts on the eyelashes and burns the palms of our hands.

Cold and harsh, sunny and gloomy, lasting more than half of the year, winter “germinates” in the character of Russian people, becomes a part of their soul – a part that they take with them wherever they go.

This snow reminds of itself in the human soul with a slight longing that sometimes catches one by surprise when travelling: on the seashore, among the Alps, on the Tower Bridge…
“Russian Snow” is also a paradoxical, chronic nostalgia – Russian people miss their home away from it, and returning miss the foreign places they left.

“Russian Snow” is nostalgia, an emotional context of a Russian man.

Meanwhile, Russian winter means fairy-tale landscapes, ruddy cheeks and fluffy mittens, as well as frost, ice and wind, short days and long darkness of the nights.
Russian winter is a challenge that must be met face to face.

What helps us in this?
Apart from patience, work (how good it is to work in the cold!) and central heating, it is hope and warmth that we create ourselves – with good emotions, memories, friendship, care – in our hearts, in our homes, for those we do love.