The Sleeping Prince Painting

Bella Matveyeva’s “St. Petersburg Hoffmanniana”, painter, who had become in a way a myth of this city. Strange and piquant visions, arrogantly disregarding all signs of the present time, captivatingly and proudly pass through her canvases, proving that it is always Silver Age in Saint – Petersburg that time is not master of in and that there’s nothing more natural for a St.Petersburger, then feeling of oneself as a personage of a risky game, or as a bohemia poseur, which in essence is nothing other than epic of heroism. Now sharp and penetrating, now obscure and incoherent, they interlace into an ornament of sleepy fantasy of the past, which is so far that has become modern. Maybe one can tell that they are raving or chance caprice of innermost desires, but the ornamental alternation of naked bodies is almost tragic – and they are so fragile, so touching, so open, - like abandoned children, like our own city, lost in the century that is not understandable and is not understood.