Аркадий Ескин

 does not tolerate any restrictions connected with groups, associations, affinities. Yeskin is inde- pendent of others’ opinions and criticism. There is only free expression of his own seeing and feeling, without any declarations, manifestos, hubbub and PR actions. The -s of the XX century for the artists were hard times of new-quality programme self- determination. Yeskin develops a new variety of themes. He revises, or rather discovers different vision of beauty und ugliness in art and life. The painter realizes his ideas using at first tempera, but then more and more often turns to oil paints. His artistic manner becomes more uninhibited, and his painting — more complex. His participation in  in the collective exhibition of ten Orenburg artists on the prem- ises of the Central House of artists on Krymsky Val in Moscow confirmed the correctness of his artistic assertions and doubts. The reviews of the leading art critics of the country were not only favourable, but highly appreciative. In those years the artist’s family moved to Orenburg, but in his native place, near Orsk, in the village of Kumak the Yeskins bought a house, very modest, rustic style. Since that time the Yeskins spent there all the warm months, returning to town with a great number of stud- ies. For Arkady Yeskin Kumak is that little nook, where he spent his childhood, where his char- acter and world outlook were moulded, a place where he is free in his feelings and desires, in his thoughts and deeds… This village is a source of creative quests and findings. Yeskin’s Kumak studies are astonishing, light, remarkable in their creative freedom. They are about himself, his folks, about some- thing very intimate. The artist extracts from a simple rustic motive a whole cascade of various tinges of mood and feeling. Yeskin’s village is so white: the white walls of huts, the white road, the white blossom of trees or heat-bleached bushes, the flushed woman wearing a white dress and shawl on a faded cart… Everything is pure and light. It is no idealization of a semi- crumbled village. You just believe that the artist is serene and happy there, the life goes on there without bustle, ranting, time flow, you have there a possibility of mixing up with nature organically and the negligence of the dab — or rather the pulsation, the breathing of the dab — stems from impatience and the wish to quickly depict what is so fickle and volatile under the sun and the moon. This perception and this feeling are particularly significant for the artist. The jug with a bunch of steppe flowers put on a stool, the gladioli with a white wall in the background, the golden balls by a fence or variegated astors in a front garden — all these ingenuous still lives on Yeskin’s canvases become emotionally expressive and bitterly endearing, with the truth of our Orenburg genre, its herb- imbued, silvery harmony of summer hues, bits