Ilya
Sergeevich Glazunov

Thesis in the CVC - "collective farm", the rating is satisfactory. The training took place at the picturesque faculty, qualification of artist-painter.

Father - Glazunov Sergey Fedorovich, the historian. Mother - Glazunova Olga Konstantinovna. Wife - Vinogradov Benoit Nina (...-1986). Son - Glazunov Ivan Ilyich, the artist. Daughter - Vera Ilinichna.

Ilya Glazunov is an artist, around the name which for several decades is not subsiding controversy. The enthusiasm of the audience accompanied by sharp criticism, in spite of that, interest in the work of this extraordinary man continues unabated.

The greatest shock echoed in the soul of the artist Leningrad blockade, remained in the memory of persistent nightmare when he lost almost all his family died in front of him, miraculously survived. 12-year-old boy was evacuated from the besieged city across lake Ladoga, on the Road of life, under the Nazi bombs...

The memory of the war always lives in the soul of the artist. As an adult, a student of the Leningrad art Institute named after I. E. Repin, he expressed his impressions of the war years in the painting "Roads of war" full of real drama and the truth of life. Glazunov offered it as a thesis. Academic authorities unanimously rejected the picture, calling it anti-Soviet, distorting the truth and meaning of the great Patriotic war of the Soviet people: "the War is characterized by the victory, and you savor the retreat of Soviet troops - this has not happened in Soviet art."

Picture a few years not exposed. The famous five-day exhibition, which was held in the Arena in 1964, he still dared to show it. However, the exhibition was closed, and the picture passed in the House of officers, where they were destroyed. In the mid 1980-ies, the artist painted a repetition of the destroyed paintings. She is now in the art Museum of Alma-ATA.

...After leaving Leningrad, little Ilya was in the ancient village of Rowing, lost in the dense forests of Novgorod. Together with the village peers dug potatoes in the field, worked on the threshing floor, pass the collective herd. These years left a deep imprint in the minds of the future artist, he owes much of the understanding of the Russian character, a sense of poetics of the Russian landscape.

The war ended when Ilya Glazunov returned to his native Leningrad. He enrolled in secondary art school, which later became the Institute named after I. E. Repin Academy of arts of the USSR, where he worked in the Studio of people's artist of the USSR Professor BV Johansson.

Under the high arches of the academic corridor - the former Imperial Academy of fine arts - 25-year-old student of Ilya Glazunov met the woman of his destiny, who became his wife - Nina Alexandrovna Vinogradov-Benoit. She was known to all art lovers of the Benois family.

The first exhibition of 26-year-old Leningrad student of Ilya Glazunov was held in early February 1957 at the Central House of art workers in Moscow. The unprecedented success of thunder which echoed in the wave of publications in the international press, announcing a powerful blow to socialist realism caused a young artist, has put this event into the category of historical phenomena. The basis for the exhibition was the receipt of Glazunov Grand Prix at the world exhibition of youth and students in Prague for the image of the imprisoned writer Julius Fucik. The young artist decided this subject boldly and unexpectedly. He showed well the prison courtyard, where prisoners are taken out for a walk, and they sadly wander in a circle, looking at the ground. And the only one with something resembling its features the youngest artist dared to raise my head to look at the beauty of melting in the sky and the clouds swirling in the evening sunset birds. This picture, so unusual and dramatic, shocked not only the international jury in Prague, but the Soviet public.

The appeal of the artist to the image of the author of "Reporting with a noose around his neck" was supported by the official ideology of the traditional internationalist sound, and it probably gave reason to assume the development of the creativity of the young artist in the future. But what they saw shocked viewers on his show, included in complete contradiction with the Soviet ideological attitudes. The artist presented 80 graphic works and paintings. In their creation put creative credo of the artist-realist, who understands the realism of Dostoevsky - "in the highest sense of the word." "There is nothing more fantastic than reality" or, as one of the favorite artists of Glazunov - mA Vrubel, "only realism bear the depth and comprehensiveness". The flow of spectators wishing to attend the exhibition, increased with each passing hour, and the day of her discussion with the authorities was called to tame the passions police, which later became the attribute and other exhibitions Glazunov. Official criticism at first was in shock, then about the creativity of the young artist sparked a fierce controversy, dividing the audience into two irreconcilable camps.

Most of the researchers and the artist himself is divided into four main cycles in his work.

The life of a contemporary, the poetry of everyday life in the big city - the theme of his lyrical "Urban cycle", which includes such films as "Leningrad spring", "City", "the Last bus", "Left" and others. For the city Glazunov is characterized by a special psychological mood that conveys the state of mind of the artist. Sometimes Glazunov expresses the mood of his lyrical hero, showing the city seen through his eyes.

More than 20 years devoted to the artist of the series "History of Russia" and continues it. "Oleg and Igor", "Prince Igor", "Two princes", "Russian Icarus," "Farewell troops", "Eve" (Dmitry Donskoy and Sergius of Radonezh on the eve of the battle of Kulikovo), "Andrei Rublev", "Russian beauty", "mystery of the XX century", "Eternal Russia" and many other paintings sing a difficult and heroic destiny of Ancient Russia.

An important stage of the artist - illustration of literary works. If the cycle "City" compared to lyric poetry, something about the cycle of illustrations write, that in Russia appears in all its social diversity, diversity. Illustrations for the works by Melnikov-Pechersky, Nikitin, Nekrasov, Leskov, Ostrovsky, Lermontov, Blok, Kuprin... From reading all of the writer from his books Glazunov aims to recreate a visible image of the homeland - such as it crystallized into the soul of the writer. And that could in the end Glazunov "illustration" in the truest sense of the word: picturesque addition to the text writer, and independent work.

The fourth cycle of Glazunov's works are portraits of his contemporaries. "I write in silence, - says Ilya. - I need to feel the inner music of the soul of the person whose portrait I am writing.

A particularly interesting portrait of the wife Glazunov - "Nina". The artist of the famous dynasty of artists Benoit, Nina became a companion, friend, assistant Glazunov. Their children, Ivan and Vera, too, became prototypes of the characters of many of the paintings Glazunov.

Ilya Sergeyevich painted portraits of workers and farmers, writers and statesmen, men of science and art: Salvador Allende, Urho Kekkonen, Federico Fellini, David Alfaro Siqueiros, Gina Lollobrigida, Mario del Monaco, Domenico Modugno, Innokenty Smoktunovsky, cosmonaut Vitaly Sevastyanov, Sergey Smirnov... Much of it from the scene. Whether it's Chile, Vietnam, France, Italy or Russia (the construction of the Baikal-Amur railway, the towns and villages of Russia).

Creative biography of the master is inextricably linked with the theater. While still a student, he was passionate about music, art, outstanding singers and musicians, even wanted to become a theater artist. This momentum bore fruit in the Mature season, when together with his wife, a connoisseur of Russian costume, he created a stunning design for productions of the operas "the legend of the invisible city of Kitezh and the maiden Fevroniya" by N. Rimsky-Korsakov in Bolshoi theatre "Prince Igor" by Borodin and "the Queen of spades" by P. Tchaikovsky at the Berlin Opera, for the ballet "Masquerade" by A. Khachaturian at the Odessa Opera house...

Here they continued the tradition of the great Russian painters such as V. Vasnetsov, A. Benois, K. Korovin, A. Golovin, and others, laid at the turn of XIX-XX centuries the basic principles of modern theatrical and decorative art. Performances with decorations, created based on sketches by I. S. Glazunov, resurrecting the spirit of the famous "Russian seasons" in Paris, was a huge success. Theatre critics raved about "singing painting" Glazunov, who was walking, as always, against the current, and modernist movements that swept the stage, and against the state-owned naturalism.

A special milestone in Glazunov Glazunov was a battle to save the historic Moscow - or rather what was left of it by the beginning of 1970-ies. It is known that particularly severe damage was caused to the city in 1930-e years in the implementation of the General plan of its reconstruction, cherished Lazar Kaganovich. Sacred Russia, sung in many works, which awe the foreigners with its beauty, Kaganovich announced "unimaginable chaos like a drunken workman", subject to destruction for construction "of a new Communist city." Subsequent alterations and rebuilding have brought Moscow to the point that she was deleted from the international register of historic cities.

Ilya continues to take an active part in the revival of the former magnificence of Old Moscow. Among his works in recent years - direct involvement in the restoration and reconstruction of buildings of the Moscow Kremlin, including the Grand Kremlin Palace.

In the early 1960-ies I. Glazunov created a Patriotic club "Rodina", the activities of which were brought by many reputable people in the country. The club became one of the first nurseries of national identity. Alas, after some time he was eliminated. Organization of all-Russian society of protection of monuments of history and culture, which gave a stable and legal opportunity to fight for the national Shrine, is also largely due to Glazunov.

Ilya Glazunov headed the Studio of a portrait in the Surikov Institute. At the initiative of Ilya Glazunov in the Russian capital in 1987 created a unique institution - the Russian Academy of painting, sculpture and architecture, in which instruction in the specialties: "painting", "sculpture", "restoration and painting technology", "architecture", "history and theory of fine arts". "I believe that the mission of the teacher-artist - to bring a person who understands the time and owns the entire Arsenal of high-realism schools of the past, say, the Renaissance, the best Russian masters".

Ilya Glazunov and still remains one of the most popular Russian artists. His exhibition is a triumph for the capitals and the largest cities on the planet, from Madrid to Tokyo, convey the soul and life of Russia to world civilization.

Glazunov - people's artist of USSR (1980), laureate of the State prize of Russia (1997) for the restoration of the Moscow Kremlin, the Honored worker of arts of RSFSR (1973), member of the Russian Academy of arts (2000), Professor, perpetual rector of the Russian Academy of painting, sculpture and architecture, member of the Academy of management in education and culture (1997).