"THE 20-TH CENTURY MYSTERY"- (to the 70-th anniversary of the birth
of the Russian painter Ilya Glazunov)
By M. Faustova
On June 10 one of major 20-th century artists Ilya Glazunov celebrated
his 70-th birthday. His controversial paintings evoke different opinions
but leave no one indifferent, which is proved by long queues to his exhibitions.
Glazunov is famous both in this country and abroad. He is about the only
Russian painter who was commissioned to paint portraits of foreign 
statesmen
and art celebrities such as Indira Gandhi, Urho Kekkonen, Frederico Fellini,
Michelangelo Antioni, Mario del Monaco and many others.
Glazunov's artistic heritage numbers over 3000 works ranging from monumental
paintings to small etchings.
Today it's impossible to believe that in his youth he had strong doubts
as to whether he had any gift for painting at all and would spent weeks
on end struggling to shape his ideas into pictorial images.
Says Ilya Glazunov: "For a long time I tormented myself with a
question whether I was fit to become a painter. I visited museums expressly
to study paintings by renowned masters and was amazed at the accuracy and
elaborateness with which every detail was drawn. Once reading Ilya Repin's
book "The Far Near" I came across his thought that a for a person
to become an artist he should listen to nobody but his own heart and paint
what is close to him. That helped me overcome my doubts".
And he painted what he wanted - the blockade of Leningrad during World
War II where at the age of 11 he lost all his relatives, portraits of well-known
and unknown people - everything that excited his imagination. His paintings
were strikingly realistic.
Says Ilya Glazunov: "If your painting doesn't move viewers, it
means that you didn't "burn" while working on it, that you failed
to convey your ideas. Success is when people need your art".
Fame
and its frequent companions - envy and hostility - came in 1956 during
his student year's in the Academy of Arts in St.-Petersburg. The Grand-Prix
at the international art contest in Prague was followed by a personal exhibition
in Moscow and lucrative commissions. But then ... luck turned away from
him, Soviet critics labeled him "anti-socialist-realistic", his
exhibition was shut and the exiled painter spent several years working
as a teacher of technical drawing in a provincial school...
By a lucky chance the then Prime Minister of Denmark decided to commission
"that talented painter" to paint his portrait. Glazunov was immediately
found and brought to Moscow.
"In Moscow I became particularly conscious of my Russian origin.
I saw magnificent palaces, ancient churches, the Kremlin - saw them falling
into decay. Many years later I founded a society for the protection and
restoration of monuments".
Glazunov is a very prolific painter. He tried his hand at a variety
of genres. Among his works one can find illustrations to Dostoyevsky, paintings
depicting life in modern cities, the so-called "lyrical diary"
containing scenery sketches... Russia with its cities, its people, its
dome-shaped churches, its rich and tragic history occupies the central
place in his heritage.
In "The 20-th Century Mystery", one of Glazunov's best-known
works painted in the late 70s, the Russian history is intertwined with
the history of mankind. Depicted on a huge canvas alongside sinister personalities
such as Hitler, Mussolini, Lenin and Stalin, are people who sowed kidness,
beauty and harmony - Russian and foreign poets, writers, actors and 
film-makers
- in short, all who destroyed and built civilization and spirituality in
the 20-th century. Russia is the subject of another of Glazunov's paintings
- "The Funeral" - a symbolic farewell to the Russia of Pushkin
and Yesenin, Tsvetayeva and Blok.
"For me Russia has always been a great power", says Glazunov.
"I believe in its revival. That's what I've been living and painting
for".
At 70 Ilya Glazunov is full of energy and new ideas. He is the rector
of the Moscow Academy of Pictorial Arts, Sculpture and Architecture. Simultaneously,
he is running a restoration project for the Great Kremlin Palace - the
"heart of Russia" as the painter calls it. Not long ago Glazunov
published a book titled "The Crucified Russia" in which he meditates
with bitterness and hope on the Russian history and culture. Over the past
two years he has turned out some 200 canvases. UNESCO awarded him a prestigious
Picasso prize for his outstanding contribution to the development of world
culture and arts.
Once Glazunov was struck by the words of the 19-th century paitner
Victor Vasnetsov who said: "My art is a candle lit before an icon".
"I wish these words could apply to myself", he said.
Illustrative material (from the book "Pictorial Art" by Ilya
Glazunov, Moscow, 1986)
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