Ледяев / Степанов

10 ing taste, finest shades of subdued colours, mobility of the atmosphere of light and air – all these make Lediayev’s landscape works be of high artistic mer- its. Ingeniousness, simplicity, even naivety are in- credibly attractive, for there exist values which can- not be re-estimated with the course of time, these values are of ethical, moral level, in a lofty mean- ing it is humanism which determine finally the long duration of genuine art. And all these feature and unite such artists differing by their manners as N. Lediayev and A. Stepanov. A. Stepanov was a talented, peculiar artist with a bright gift of colour. He could express himself to the full extent in still life works, this genre was very far from political topics and it was not encouraged by the authorities. Year by year he was offered to paint genre compositions. He used to draw a good coloured sketch and that was that. So he had to do the breadwinning. He took on any display tasks, gave lessons at a fine arts studio – it was working for peanuts and a chronical poverty. He had to pur- chase firewood at the market for heating his house and to see to the house for his wife had health problems. And the time when he could stay at his easel was a really happy, pleasure, exultance. That is why his still life works were so bright, sonorous, full-blooded. He worked with a broad brush and a spatula, he liked a broad relief stroke and the pas- tose technique. His works were not sold in province. He won public recognition only in the 1960s, after his solo exhibition, after the raptures of Australian author Dimphna Cusac who attended the show. Our museum have purchased a collection of Stepanov’s works. Under most incredible conditions (one of the best Stepanov’s works was painted on a piece of plywood with a rough edge), challenging the reality, he created his own bright, festivous world abundant with luxurious bunches of flowers, apples in bulk, fruits and vegetables. For Stepanov, the beauty of the world is in full colours, in expressiveness of vol- umetric interrelations. Works by Lediayev and Stepanov still light up our life with a sunny sincere joy of contacting the world around, with optimism, with noetic fullness of images. Lidia Medvedeva , critic of arts, Deputy director for research work