For several years now, the famous Russian mosaic artist Alexander Kornoukhov has been accepting his close associates in his summer residence, holding summer mosaics seminars. It should be said that these seminars in no way have the form of master classes, he does not teach beginner mosaicists how to use mosaic materials and tools for them.
First of all, these seminars are an invitation to a creative and philosophical debate, an attempt to open new lines in the perception of art, nature, human emotions and ideas and, most importantly, the exposure of close ties between all these substances.
Many artists from different Russian places visited Alexander Kornoukhov. All of them have different perceptions on the mosaic, unlike each other. But there is one thing that unites them all – the irresistible attraction of Kornoukhov’s creative energy, the grandeur of his spirit, whose powerful gravity cannot be resisted.
One of the artist’s ideas is to turn the mosaic not into a separately exhibited work, weave it into the surrounding nature, and make it an organic part of the natural environment.
The “Uneternal mosaic” is woven into the braids of this garden, it gleams with quartzite and slate. There is a mystery of the stone, layered, shimmering and decaying into scales. The union of wood and stone, the rhythms of the rigid structure of the mesh are woven into vibrations of foliage.
Noticing and appreciating this game, you can see in the mosaic the negotiator between the spontaneous life of the garden and our stoics crutches – logic, physics and ethics.
Mosaic stops the war between a dilapidated fence and a Forsythia bush, between a painted wall and wild grapes. She is needed here. It does not look artificial, it is not a luxury, not an ornament; it is a “word” and a “meaning”. This is a mosaic that cannot but be itself.
The theme of the seminars: “The Uneternal Mosaic”. The maestro believes that in an attempt to create something “Eternal” the artist is inevitably forced to immerse himself in technology, and in this case there is no room for improvisation and inferior to the idea of possession, belonging to the world and name.
But nothing can belong to a person, especially eternity. Two materials – a stone that has lived millions of years, and a tree whose age is comparable to the human. A tree like a man is slowly dying. starting to break down.
The tree will break down, turn into dust, and the stones and mortar will scatter around like skeleton bones. Artists lays stones in the recesses left from the cutter, sticks them to the surface, cuts out traces with a knife in the body of the tree.
A tree lasts, flows, and its flow, the direction of its fibers, affects the mosaic, the stone, which penetrates its surface.
The idea of mosaic, as a story open to the world and at the same time being an incredible spectacle, has been moving the artist for several years.
Last summer, Alexander Kornoukhov proposed to write short mosaic messages in the language of mosaics. Mosaic symbolic inscriptions were supposed to illustrate ancient archaic signs.
To fine out the nature of the wooden board, which will be the basis for the mosaic, to read its character and recognize in the bends of the texture with which stone it will be most comfortable was not an easy task.
The usual croaker was polished, prepared, and the goal was to place the image on it in such a way that it worked with the shape of the board so that it would not look like a sticker sloppy pasted.
It was necessary to make sure that this croaker continued its life, having absorbed a new impulse. His knots, his irregular warped form, all this determines what will be depicted on it, what will suit him.
Kornoukhov teaches his guests to pay attention primarily to the texture, nature, inner essence of the material. Color, in his opinion, interrupts the meaning of the mosaic “eternal” message. The slate and quartzite, which the artist offers for work, have the advantage that they are able to reflect light in different ways, being a bright material in the light that competes with smalt. But at the same time, they tactfully and gently work together with a rough board.
Another find of the artist is a system of communicative fences. The fence, in theory, is what should limit, enclose space, and in the usual sense we have it. In the garden near Kornoukhov, the fence turns into a means of communication; it makes the fence a completely non-fence story.
The fence becomes a theatrical decoration; in contrast to its first purpose, it becomes something that, on the contrary, unites the spaces of neighboring sections. These are communicative fences that invite to communication.
Formally, it remains a fence, but in reality it is not a fence, but a transparent art object, with a mosaic implanted into it, referring to classical literary plots.
The theme of the fence continued. The idea of a part of such an interactive fence as the cats pyramid was born. Vasya, the son of Mariya Skurekhina, one of the seminar participants, painted these cats. The task was a difficult one, the pyramid was assembled from boards in such a way that the boards talk among themselves with their bends, they were not chosen at all randomly.
It was not an easy task to invent such cats so that they became akin to boards. Rescued the notorious Vasya. He was asked to draw suitable cats, and he famously coped with this task. His cats stretch to two meters, being completely organic in the body of the board. A truly fresh look.
The summer seminar is also a place where you can have some fun. Putting afloat the wooden ship took place in the presence and with the direct participation of all participants under the guidance of maestro Kornoukhov.
Satisfied faces of artists who had the rapture of the synergy of mutual creativity and received a boost of energy from the luminary of the Russian mosaic Alexander Kornoukhov best of all reflect the result of their common work.
