Kweiseye is an art criticism blog written by Tom Kwei. If you enjoy this article, browse the archive HERE for more than 60 other critiques of both artists and exhibitions. Any questions/queries/use: tomkweipoet@gmail.com.

Alexander Bogomazov was another book find for me. And by that I mean an artist to whom I’ve reached randomly whilst flicking pages, not one I’ve long admired or been curious to explore – see Konrad Kryzyanowski or Harriet Backer for other aleatory jaunts.

Counted as Russian in my ‘100 Years of Russian Art, 1889 – 1989’ tome, the now Ukrainian painter seems more remembered today as a theorist than for his pictures. Though exploring his work I have found this ill-fitting, Bogomazov being a painter whose startling inventiveness deeply affects through its often rigid geometry.

‘Expectation’ (1900)

Whilst the majority of his work seems to call towards the dynamism of the machine age, this painting, with its contradictory pull of deep sentimentality and blatant construction, seeks its celebration within itself.

As ‘Expectation’, in spite of its simple pictorial centre, can appear abstract on first encounter through the sheer force of its method. An impact stemming from Bogomazov’s employment of Pointlist techniques. Pointlism being a process perfected by the French Post-Impressionist Georges Seurat wherein it is the glow around a point of colour that is heralded as key. A feature that can be heightened when that dot is on a white background which reflects rather than absorbs light, giving a distinct fizz and luminosity to images.

Such inspired detail gifts the work a sense of movement. Ideal especially considering the setting of the piece: the sea eternally folding at a distance below, the wind blowing through the harsh grass, the frills of the bowed woman’s dress.

A woman who becomes more absorbed into the scene around her the more you scrutinise. Though her body itself may be a tad basic in execution, a thoughtful eye and mouth acting as visible distinguishers, it is perhaps the dark of her head leaning forward that enraptures most. Its hairline coincident with the shoreline as if a glimpse of night was captured in the thatch – a preview of this world at another time of day.

Bogomazov’s strict style engenders a sense of cohesion throughout the piece. The little chain-link fishes of the water inseperable in their speckled neatness from the sky behind and the sitter above.

But why is she sitting? The mystery as to who she is and to what purpose this inner meandering is serving is unclear. Neither is the red bag/coat/flower beside her. An odd disjunction that encroaches and distracts from the inner peace of ‘Expectation’.

With such outlandish skill on display already though, perhaps Bogomazov is merely showing that breaking to fundamentals is not necessarily at the sacrifice of beauty.

‘Abstract Landscape’ (1915)

There feels a play on words here. ‘Abstract Landscape’ is still a landscape then, still a depiction of hills and gorges and cliffs and distance, just one that is employing abstract imagery to achieve these ends.

Various slopes cut across at intervals as stomachs. These vertical reaches being more noticeable the father away from the painting you get. Up-close the labyrinth lines of various purples and yellows are too rich in complexity to look past; what ultimately intrigues here though is the order rather then chaos, the landscape rather than the abstract.

At either side of the valley we have corresponding cliff faces of gnarled instrument husks with weathered caverns within. The painting just retreats and retreats, until the jazz solo smatterings of the peak we’re cresting beneath us gives way eventually to the bold strokes at the back.

What such distance and difference allows is the sense that you are falling into the canvas. It is both cavernous and inward, a barbaric display of nothingness that still seems to pull at the viewer. It unfolds and unravels from whatever view you take at it, as complex and enthralling from high above or deep in the basin.

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