Portrait of a Boy Painting

Artist Igor Barkhatkov is one of the most notable representatives of realism in modern Belarusian easel painting. He works in the landscape, portrait, still life and story-based thematic genre painting. Igor Barkhatkov's creative journey has been shaped by the fact that he is a member of an artistic dynasty. Igor's father is the famous Belarusian painter Anton Barkhatkov. The artist’s travels with his father to the Akademicheskaya Dacha and his conversations with F. Reshetnikov, V. Tokarev, V. Sidorov, and Y. Kugach left a great impression on the young artist, and they endowed the artist with a serious attitude to art. Each work by Igor Barkhatkov is a complex structure, which he organizes according to the rules of great art. The artist only paints from nature. He lets his composition and the other requirements of the picture guide his work. He takes a strict and measured approach to color. His desire for completeness, including even when he is working on small sketches, creates a sensation that even the air has some ponderous significance, and his impeccable use of tone allows even his most dense works to sparkle. By choosing to depict his landscapes at the very peak of each season, the artist is able to locate the ground plane and horizon line in space with incredible accuracy. He focuses the viewer's attention on the shape of the shadows that are cast by the sunset and the proportionality of the lines and the shapes of rural buildings. Igor Barkhatkov constantly seeks to improve his system of painting by creating a colossal range of interconnections using the color gray. The artist reveals the richness of the lyrical intonations of the Belarusian landscape, creating true-to-life images that are enriched by a deeply spiritual theme.