The Theme of the High North in the Art of Krasnoyarsk Artist Stepan Fedorovich Turov

Abstract

Stepan Fedorovich Turov was drawing artist who has served an important purpose of the development of book illustration at the Krasnoyarsk Krai, he was an artist who has been famous in his own lifetime at home and abroad. Works of art on the theme of the North forms a large part of Turov’s heritage but no one research that characterized specificity of realization of the North at Turov’s creative work has been published until the present. There is very small amount of published works about the artist. I. M. Davydenko’s opening chapter of the catalogue of posthumous exhibition of Turov of the 1983 is only one attempt to bring comprehensive analysis of the art of the artist. At books and papers of T. M. Lomanova, E. D. Getmanski and V. Averikhin only a few artworks made by Turov are examined. The aims of this scientific paper are to summarize data about graphic works made by Turov and devoted to the North and to find specific pictorial patterns that are used at these works. At the paper the key aspects are contemplated where the theme of the North in the art of Turov was found out: book illustration, series of easel etchings, linocut landscapes, ex-libris. There was made a connection between book illustration and easel graphic works made by Turov on the theme of the North. This paper not only brings a coherent picture of the development of the theme of the North in art of Turov for the first time. It also put into scientific circulation an information about unpublished artworks made by Turov and new facts of the artist’s biography connected with the North. It was identified that the theme of the North is essential in art of Stepan Fedorovich Turov. Often he tried out new genres and composition patterns specifically within the theme of the North. There were denoted characteristic features of works of art made by Turov on the theme of the North such as individual method of describing a space and keen perception of the culture of indigenous northern people.