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The creation of the world IX

Mikalojus Konstantinas Čiurlionis • Painting, 1906, 35.5×30.5 cm
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About the artwork
Art form: Painting
Subject and objects: Landscape, Mythological scene
Style of art: Symbolism
Technique: Tempera
Materials: Paper
Date of creation: 1906
Size: 35.5×30.5 cm
Artwork in collection: My collection Tatyana Somova
Artwork in selections: 25 selections

Description of the artwork «The creation of the world IX»

"The creation of the world" was conceived as a large-scale cycle. Čiurlionis was going to dedicate his entire life to write no less than a hundred paintings, however, had only thirteen.

The traditional interpretation of the theme of creation based on the biblical stories in Genesis. "The creation of the world" Ciurlionis - otherwise. Here he expressed his own ideas about the eternal beauty and unattainable harmony, fantastic and imbued with a mystical spirit. Thanks to the cycle of the creation of the world the name of čiurlionis often associated with art - a new direction in Russian painting, which emerged in the early twentieth century and associated with the artistic development of new, universal horizons.

Composition Ciurlionis paintings from the series "the Creation" is based on the laws of musical harmony. Stems are fantastic plants are pulled up, almost without interacting and flashing from time to time a bright red-orange flowers. Their tropical riot transmits the intensity and pulsating energy developments. Čiurlionis in his paintings like captures and conveys the rhythms of nature - the eternal recurrence and yet changeable, at the same time he writes a reality different from terrestrial settings. Critics say that in Čiurlionis space there is often a lack of gravity.

Dark silhouettes in the lower third of the painting resembles a human. Perhaps they are even valid to interpret as human figures, watching unfolding before their eyes the process of creation of the Universe. In this case, man is not just a passive object of creative power of Nature, but also to some extent a participant in these processes. Nature paintings čiurlionis given how powerful and pervasive creativity. "This is a pantheist purest water", - rightly spoke of Čiurlionis in one of the first positive reviews on his paintings.

However, surprisingly, we would have to look for a more rational interpretation of what is depicted in the creation of the world. Apparently, it is not necessary. Contemporaries recall that čiurlionis, man is by nature very kind and delicate, could go only in one case. When it was asked to "explain"that depicted in his paintings and how they should be understood. "Why don't they look? - shouted then čiurlionis. - Why do not want to strain his soul?"
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