Madonna of the 21st century | Dry pastel | Figurative drawing | Original art Drawing Drawing

I started my art education in the department of architecture in the Russian Academy of Arts in St.Petersburg. This is one of the oldest art educational institutions in Russia and Europe. The Russian Academy was founded in 1757 in the Russian Empire. The government of the Russian Empire wanted to saturate the people's life with European art. The main task of the educational institution was to relay Western European practices and traditions to the Russian space. In the ХХ century Russia has faced with a series of shocks and transformations. Political and social transformations, tragedies and disappointments, successes and victories are forever reflected in the culture of Russia. The beginning of the ХХ century is the birth of the legendary era of the Russian avant-garde, a complete rejection of the past and an absolute immersion in the ideas of modernism. In 1917 Russia had already become part of the USSR and located in the head of the world's advanced ideas of architecture and fine art. When Stalin came to power in 1929, the USSR began to search for identity in classical images. Architecture and painting turn around in the opposite direction. Social realism becomes the only direction of artistic activity. The death of Stalin and the rise to power of Khrushchev started the era of thaw. Khrushchev returned architecture to the global context of modernism, but the official fine art remained unchanged until the end of the 80s.The restrictions of official art in the USSR performed a unique function of preserving the culture of realistic drawing and painting. In 1991, after the collapse of the USSR, it turned out that the school of fine arts remained unchanged. In architecture and fine arts for 75 years in Western Europe and the United States, was the big market and the absence of borders implemented a lot of contemporary directions which added to the partial or complete rejection of academic drawing.