Карнация Ремнева

С. 5–10.

Steiner E. S.

     “Andrei Remnev” is almost a perfect rhyme for “Andrei Rublev”. It is not an attempt to praise or to joke. Such an association arose in my mind when I got myself thinking about Remnev’s carnation – he is a rare contemporary artist, who possesses it. He has his own and style-forming carnation like Rublev had, which was often called “facial depiction” in relation to the art of iconography.

     Carnation is a manner of painting faces, hands, and flesh in general by mixing paint in such a way that it sets the coloring tone, combining the picture in warm or cold color range and bold and tender velvet or impervious-porcelain tones. It is associated with glazing, but it’s more than just glazing. Admittedly, nowadays there are very few artists who trouble themselves with that, whereas Remnev possesses the technique and loves it. A carnation of one’s own is when facial depiction becomes personal and gives away the hand of the master before one sees the signature or the plot with the composition. Сarnation in the faces by Remnev, with its combination of the coldish pink dawn of the midnight countries and Cimabue or Duccio’s olive-greenish, evokes a feeling of ethereal purity, as it was with the artists of the Duecento or Trecento. In this regard, Remnev appears as a pre-Raphaelite and a much more pre-Raphaelite than Rossetti and his circle with their sensuous images that have far surpassed in their fleshiness Fornarina – Raphael’s stoutish baker’s wife.

Keywords: живопись, Painting, изобразительное искусство, Contemporary art, carnation, карнация

In book

Стрелка. Андрей Ремнев. Каталог выставки

М.: Российская академия художеств, 2017.