The Last Artist. Half a Century with a Brush in Hand
For more than half a century, the brush in my hand, touching the canvas or paper, reflects on the world I create.
In the beginning it was the world of the child, the world of learning, ingenuous, but without knowledge and experience. Impressions from the first artistic experiments resulted in a vague desire to learn this fascinating craft - to picture the world with paints. A foolish desire.For years I was studying diligently, I was taught the socialist realism and the proper perspective, the proper composition and the realistic representation of the environment. All the time I was carefully wiping the child's world replacing it with patterns that are understandable to everyone. Such a beautiful way leading to a dead end. Simultaneously I studied music and afterwards music alone helped me not to throw the brush into the corner. The classics helped in the harmony of colors and jazz in the improvisation with the shape. It remained to find a language. This took me about 20 years.
Music helped me to forget the canons and patterns by connecting the world of childhood to adult sensations and the desire to convey a simple truth ... a painting is not for 5 minutes, it hangs on the wall and people live with it, it helps to live, causing only positive emmotions. And then ... I stood behind the canvas (as in the ancient Russian icon, with its sincerity, reciprocal perspective and its desire to help). Already living in Europe, I did an experiment - buying a painting one could return it to me in a week and get his money back. Not a single picture returned.
I'm standing there, behind the canvas, in my every pictures and talk to you. Is it good or not I cannot judge. This is my language, and each time, when I am painting, it's like for the last time. This continues for many years.
- Anatoli Gostev (1946 - 2022)
Ii is not much left to me, and to my mind it is very important that those for whom I paint - whoever and whatever he/she is - could see: I give them all that I have. And I expect the same from them. I like art and I love to paint. I guess I was born to do this. .
On the verge of oblivion and emptiness.
Be inspired by the art of the last artist. Why the last? Isn't it your current world that tapes bananas to walls and preserves sharks under glass, calling it art? On the brink of oblivion and emptiness, breathe in the magnificent beauty of the last artist one final time. Perhaps the beauty of his paintings will save not the world, but at least those who seek beauty? I, the founder of FABER VISUM, was fortunate. I was saved with my first breath on this strange planet – born and raised among colors and paintings, in the family of my great father, the last artist, if only for me.
A painting is a powerful and elegant tool for influencing a person's mood, emotions, and soul. This is a unique class of objects because they are visible both as they are and as something completely different from just a canvas on which they are painted.
Contemplation of painting is an emotional act, a breath of the work of art. A painting is a showcase of the artist, and everyone can see the showcase and pass by it, but if you suddenly feel like it, you can stop and go inside. Inside is the artist's soul, and you will be able to understand his appeal to you.
Art always carries an instinctive character, starting with inspiration. Inspiration for creating a work of art can be considered as an attempt to understand the emotion towards an object or theme, whether fictional or real. When viewed through the prism of emotions, a subject is transformed into something tangible on canvas, speaking to the viewer in a universal language of feelings. The simplest and most superficial way is to see or imagine a plot and capture it. There is another way... analyzing what has been seen, what has been stored in memory, and then determining the purpose of it all and whether it will be interesting to others. And finally, the most important question - can one live with it?
When I begin a painting, I do not know when it will end: in a month, a year, or perhaps never... You have to be able to suffer through the painting... And then the painting begins, and a brushstroke that you cannot immediately grasp causes so much anguish that you lose your mind. And you work, striving for results for weeks and months...
Painting can be compared to jazz. A musician takes a simple melody and improvises on it, adding new notes and nuances. If done well, we are willing to listen to his interpretation infinitely, discovering new notes each time. Painting is like jazz.
Good jazz rests on a small number of melodies (in painting, these melodies are landscape, still life, portrait, and the life that surrounds us). Jazz is so incredibly beautiful because it allows us to freely shape a simple melody into something new and thus convey the entire spectrum of human feelings, just like a painting.
Into the modified slogan of the 45th–47th President of the United States, Mr. Donald Trump, Gostev's Dynasty embed a broader spectrum of our goals: the greatness of true creativity can make not only America great again but all of humanity on planet Earth. «Make ART Great Again» is a project to support and develop art for the true heroes. Let us make art, love, faith, and hope great again.
- Liliana Gostev
Thank you to all who support us in this.
gostev.org Gallery BiographyArticles Gallery in pdf
Anatoli Gostev (1946 - 2022) lived in Western Europe from 1997. His masterpieces of contemporary art are part of numerous private collections in Germany, Poland, the Czech Republic, the United Kingdom, the USA, Italy, Sweden, and Switzerland. Paintings, biographies, and articles are featured on the page of the Gostev's dynasty, as well as on the artist's personal page.
