Аркадий Ескин

 And how many arguments burst out in front of Yeskin’s paintings! Far from being always in a positively tempered mood, there happened to be harsh, negative assessments, violent accusa- tions of the painter. And Yeskin’s answer is: “Sometimes you feel hurt, sometimes you don’t. In fact, I somehow don’t care. It’s normal to face this or that attitude: it would be worse, if people remained indifferent.” Yeskin does not curry favour with the public, he is not afraid of not being recognized. He takes the brush to depict what he really admires, what “moved and turned him on”, and public opinion has nothing to do with it. Loyal to his artistic temperament, Yeskin creates his own space and inhabits it with his cherished images, but how- ever high-tempered might be his heroes’ emo- tions, the artist’s taste does not let him slither to rudeness or vulgarity, trespass the boundaries of decency. Yeskin succeeds in arousing utterly various and contradictory movements of the soul, emo- tions which momentarily flow from one into the other. There are feelings which we share and un- derstand, there are those which are alien to our experience, but the fact how sincerely and sim- ply, without superfluous details and entourage does the artist tell about them makes us discard conventions and accept these feelings. Thinking about it we understand that behind the coarse hull there is the warmth of true life, not glossy and designed, but genuine, with natural expres- sion and true depiction of colourful feelings, desires and passions. As a rule, the artist paints his wife, his dear ones, his friends: “The mixture of Irka, Klavka, Mashka, the neighbours, some acquaintances.” Arkady Yeskin’s personal association with all that takes place in his paintings is evident. The artist’s basic genres — landscape, portrait and every day life sketch — are in this case closely interlaced. He does drawings from nature, but if it somehow does not suit him, he “alters” it, do- ing in his own way. His expressive deformation of nature, all along with keeping concrete objects is absolutely individual and recognizable. What really matters for Yeskin it is being convinc- ing and natural. “A look from different sides. Movement, volume, light, colour. Everything combined.” — this is the Master’s artistic credo. And the total absence of ideal figures — it is rather a peculiarity of his artistic world outlook. His women — with stout bodies and inexorable wrinkles, broad-shouldered and short-legged, funny, flippant and… touching. The artist does not care much for reproducing minutely his model’s features on the portraits. Posture, move- ment, manners, gesture, jovially outstretched fingers or toes tell much more about them. He has his own beauty esthetics. The Orenburg journalist, the Yeskins’ friend Tatyana Yulayeva wrote in her article: “Jesus! How far they are all from being perfect! But then why do I remember them, in all the smallest details, why am I not angry with the painter for his perfidy, why do I smile and love them? Maybe because the Artist imparted all his light-filled feelings to me and made me think once again asking: but what is beauty in fact? What’s better: find, as time goes on, some flaws in an ideally beautiful body and face or find perfection in an ugly one? The first way leads to disappointment, the second one — to the affection which does not disap- pear as years pass. Maybe that is why are so happy and mysterious ordinary faces of those who possess equally imperfect bodies and are so cold, lifeless the images of beauties? Unspiritual beauty can’t help exciting an artist, and spiritual ugliness does not exist at all.” He, for whom being natural and genuine is above all, just sees them as they really are. It is not his line — to be a moralist and mentor. He just states things, but with a special degree of affection, with mild irony which, in itself, is a standpoint, is an assessment of life, an expres- sion of his views. Woman for him is a creature