Kronid Gogolev is a brilliant wood carver. Carved paintings by Kronid Gogol - It also has a conditional name

A year has passed since the death of the Sortavala woodcarver Kronida Aleksandrovich Gogoleva, famous throughout Russia. Its exhibition center is being prepared to become a museum. As in life, the bright hall is thickly hung with golden boards, on which the Russian village seems like a fairy tale. The keeper of the collection is the young daughter of the artist, Maria Kronidovna.

– I agree that there was some element of dispute. Indeed, on the one hand – Finnish Sortavala, the modern era and opera in general, and on the other – Russian, so folk, bright, strong. And it was controversial.

– This was a very natural exhibition for Sortavala: although there are no “bourgeois” left in the city, the atmosphere is still created by the buildings of the early last century in the Finnish Art Nouveau style. Where are the roots of Gogolev’s works?

– The artist himself comes from the Novgorod province, from near Staraya Russa. He was born in 1926. Gogolev had a very good memory: he said that he found that village, untouched by collectivization, not killed. Then, when Kronid Aleksandrovich lived in Karelia, throughout the sixties and seventies, he went on long hikes in the Russian North in the summer. Basically it was Vologda, it was Arkhangelsk, it was Veliky Ustyug. Over time, northern architecture and the life of the Russian village began to predominate in his works.

– So, the choice of topic is connected with biography, and not with some abstract pochvenism?

– Yes, it is very connected with the biography. At one time, when I was studying to become an art critic, I defended my diploma on the works of Kronid Aleksandrovich. Or rather, not even on creativity, but precisely on the topic “Biography of the artist in the context of the socio-cultural situation of the environment and region.” Naturally, this is very interconnected.

– It is difficult for an outsider to grasp these connections, knowing the little about Gogolev that can be found on the Internet.

- Yes, there is little to be found.

– For example, it is known that he was the son of a priest. Although some write that he is not a priest...

– I “comb” all the guides a little, because they seem to be on the same wavelength, that Gogolev was the son of a priest, and that’s it, let’s go... This is already starting to irritate me. During the excursion, we won’t go into depth about what kind of priest he is. I say this: I was the son of a simple man...
Of course, grandfather, that is, father’s father, was a priest. But he was a kind of priest; in his twenties he gave up ministry. Not because there was persecution of the church. They were, naturally, but the main reason for his departure was Tolstoy, he was a Tolstoyan. He renounced his rank when Kronid was probably a year old. And until the end of his days, grandfather was a carpenter, joiner, and earned his living from this. Even when the war came, the Germans came to the village, called him as a former priest, and said “you will serve” - he refused. He was taken out to be shot three times a night, but he still refused: “I won’t serve.” Not because he was afraid, but simply... for him this topic was exhausted. And he did not consider this acceptable for himself.

It seems we also found a carved Tolstoyan

- Very weak! Because the most important thing is work, like Tolstoy, the Tolstoyans had it. This was the case with Gogolev’s father and with Kronid Aleksandrovich himself. The most important and decisive thing is work. There is not even a concept of inspiration. He was often asked the question: “But if you don’t have inspiration...”. He snorted and said: “Well, what about inspiration, work is work.” Therefore, there is not a single “screwed up” job. If she got bored, then in the worst case she could be removed from the workbench. But then she returned to the workbench, because he always finished the work.

The best work of Kronid Gogolev (according to Maria Kronidovna herself). The plot is taken from Kalevala.

– Between “born” and “died” they usually write that Gogolev fought, then became an artist, and in his old age recognition came.

– The war took eight years of my life. In '42 he went to the front, although he should not have been called up yet. He simply crossed the front line and joined the partisans with his older sister. And after the victory - another five years of military service. For people like him, the war ended only in 1950. First he had to somehow finish evening school, and then at the art and graphic school he sat at a desk with boys who had not fought, who were children during the war. Such was the age gap... Everything came to Gogolev late. He began working with wood when he was already over fifty. I was born in 1977, and he was fifty-one years old. At sixty, having already worked a lot, he gets a showroom and begins to renovate it. And only in 1989 it opens.

– You were a late child. What was it like to live in the family of a master, for whom, on the one hand, everything is so late, and on the other hand, creative energy is in full swing at such an age?

– Let’s put it this way... it’s probably good that I was born a girl (laughs). He didn’t understand some things: “How can you not do this? Stay there and do it, stay there and do it.” Gogolev was over seventy, and I was sixteen... I had to hold, help, carry, clean the workshop. He had a workshop in these rooms (we are talking on the floor above the exhibition hall): there was a workbench, there he cut, here he painted, where my table now stands, overlooking Ladoga.

We can say that he was such a centrifugal force around which our whole family revolved.
Gogolev was an unusual father. He probably knew what school I went to (smiles), but everything else was on my mother’s shoulders. Dad worked 365 days a year. On December 31 he returned at five in the evening, and on January 1 he got up at six in the morning and went to work - this was the norm. Residents of the center are accustomed to the fact that at six in the morning the janitors and Gogolev go to work.

– Was Gogolev interested in anything other than his work?

“He was always, until the last month of his life, interested in politics. It was just a politician! Always knew all the news. I made him printouts from Alexei Navalny’s website, from the Daily Journal. Satarov, Yasin, Shenderovich - he read absolutely all of them. This was the most important thing for him.
He didn't have many friends. They all, unfortunately, left before him. There was Savely Yamshchikov, the great Russian art critic - the one who raised virtually the entire layer of Russian provincial painting and Russian icons. There was Viktor Sergeevich Kalikin, a bass from Petrozavodsk - they were such two bearded men. Gogolev always had very good relationships with musicians. It seemed to him that it was even easier with them than with his fellow artists. They really liked to organize music evenings here. It was Gogolev who started the tradition of not only looking at his works, but also listening to music in the hall. This tradition has already been alive for twenty-five years.

SORTAVALOCHKA

Together with Maria Kronidovna we go down to the exhibition hall.

– By the way, why are there no signs with the names of the works?

– This is an eternal question... Tourists have already tortured me over the years of working as a tour guide (but there is no dissatisfaction in my voice). There will be labels, this year they will be. But the problem was with the artist himself. He always got mad and said: “You see what’s depicted there?” - “We see.” - "What?" - "By the river. On Bridge. On the shore". “Well,” he says, “what if I write the name here: “On the shore”, “On the bridge”, “By the river”?

– ...even just “Clock”.

– Yes, “Clocks” (laughs). Or Sortavala. Well, it’s clear that Sortavala. Even when I was little, not even a student, but a schoolgirl, I had to name jobs. My mother and I tried our best. All the time “Gatherings”, “Parties”, “On the Shore”, “By the River” - everything is so same...

We slowly move around the hall. There is time to consider the wealth of detail.

– What did Kronid Alexandrovich personally teach you? As an artist.

– As an artist, it’s hard to say, because most of my educational life fell on my mother. My mother also graduated from art painting and was the director of an art school for a long time. When I finished school, there were no options where to go. Hoodgraf and all, this was not discussed at all. But I still insisted that I didn’t want to be the third artist in this family. “I’ll go to that job where they talk a lot,” as I said. That is, for art history. I didn’t regret choosing a specialty, and my dad accepted it quite calmly.
I witnessed all aspects of the process related to the tree, but rather as an observer-biographer. She was literally standing behind him. He always believed that carving was absolutely not a woman’s business; he made no attempts to put me at the board. But the technology of cutting something like this, then further staining it like this, you have to hold the tree like this, then attach the frame like this - I knew all that, I helped him as much as possible.
I just took this miniature out, it just needs to be pulled off. A linden tree can become capricious like this, that is, crack. But this will not happen with this tree, jelutong: it is very flexible, a knife goes into it like butter. Jelutong has such a characteristic yellow color, even fried. Malaysian carvers from Bali use it. The Swedes brought this to him as a gift. I hung it up specifically for comparison, to see what Russian linden is like and what jelutong is like.

– Is the main material still...

-...linden, linden. Here, even with oil and grated wax, there is practically no characteristic shine - that is, it is pure linden, unprotected.

– Do Kronid Alexandrovich have any direct successors?

– There are no direct successors. There is an artist, he now lives in Finland, Viktor Ryazanov. It has a sculptural relief, but a landscape one. These are mainly images of small Finnish churches. There are a lot of Finnish carvers, but they have... I won’t say a primitive level, but a slightly different level of perception and storytelling. They have the following themes: saunas, steam scenes. Or just small wooden sculptures. A voluminous plot, multi-facetedness, where there are a lot of people and each group is connected with the other by some kind of action, when all this is also woven into the context of architecture - this is found only in Kronid Aleksandrovich.

– Is there anyone in Russia?

– In the north of Karelia, in Kalevala, there lives a carver. It has a shallow, very smoothed relief: not as stormy and rearing as Gogolev’s. And still, everyone’s ultimate goal is to sell their work. In order for labor to feed. And it just so happened that the years were like this, and the person was like this, that works were simply created, and that’s all. They accumulated, he did not sell them. Occasionally, various communists would take his work as gifts, then, already in post-communist times, our managers came to buy or ask for gifts.

By the way, he created this work for Yeltsin’s dacha in Shuiskaya Chupa – probably in 1993. This was the largest work he had done at that time. There was a niche at the dacha, and Gogolev designed a frame for it, which was obviously larger than the niche. When we arrived to pick it up, it turned out that the work did not fit into the niche. And they didn't take it. He was so happy! I didn't want to give it away. And a few years later he creates a mate for her. I am often asked how long it takes to complete one job. I know for sure that that work took seven months. This is the maximum amount of time he spent on one job.
Now that the filling of the collection has stopped, we just need to preserve everything, make a museum, a Gogolev museum. Literally in April we submit the charter to the Ministry of Justice. This building has had the status of an exhibition hall for twenty-five years. And this status implies a change of exposure, the proximity of different exposures. Here is the same “City. Faces. Theatre,” which you saw, we would be happy to move to another room... But since we exist within the framework of a municipal institution, we need to complete tasks, that is, exhibitions, exhibitions, exhibitions.

– Do we understand correctly that Kronid Aleksandrovich donated all the works to the city?

- Nooo, this is false information! This canard was floated back in the nineties. Even the bosses, when they took tours here, said: “He handed over the work to the city.” This is impossible, because Gogolev, no matter how impetuous he was, would never have done such a thing. This is a private collection. Neither Gogolev nor I were ever ready to give it as a gift to anyone. Because if you donate it to the museum fund of the Russian Federation, then everything will go into storage in Petrozavodsk, lie like a dead weight at the bottom of the Museum of Fine Arts or the National Museum... or will be torn apart among many museums. This is all a common cauldron, which is scary to get into.

Through a door that was blocked in Soviet times, we get from the exhibition hall into a room equipped as a workshop with a grant from the European Union.

– This project involved the supply of all the equipment: a good muffle furnace, a drying oven, a fusing furnace, and hand-held pottery wheels. We also brought my father’s etching press here, this big one.

– What usually happens here?

– We conduct master classes. The workshops are faced with a task for the future: to create a souvenir line associated with this particular place. With our Art-Gogol Center and Sortavala. We are currently developing a patent for the so-called “sortavalochka”.

Maria Kronidovna picks up a painted clay figurine.

– Previously, a woman’s striped skirt was like a barcode, by which one could tell where it was from – from Kurkiyoki, from Yakkim, from Sortavala... Sortavalochka is the only souvenir created here on the basis of our history. All the other souvenirs that are brought to us from China with the inscription “Sortavala” and with the coat of arms are just such a need for tourists. The Ministry of Culture, thank God, supported our initiative. When the minister arrives, he buys up all the sorts he has. The history of the costume is generally very interesting. I think we won't stop there. We work well with the Finns, since this was their territory after all. They are always happy to help with advice and materials.
We also have an art school here, which we have converted to a studio format.

– Is your studio an addition to the city art school or an alternative to it?

– This is an alternative, I just hid it behind the name “studio”, and expanded the age from three to infinity. How studios are created at the Tretyakov Gallery, the Hermitage, the Russian Museum - the same thing, only on a reduced scale. I was accused of evading licensing. But I believe that in our country they are now systematically killing art education, simply cutting off its head.

– Is it difficult to maintain this building?

“In 2010, three years before dad left, we decided that, roughly speaking, it was no longer possible to live like this in the gym. The hall was already collapsing before our eyes: the building was a hundred, even a hundred and ten years old. The Finns had a rautakauppa, a hardware store, here. Ours had a light industrial warehouse, and upstairs there was a communal apartment. We started a global renovation, but since Kronid Aleksandrovich did not recognize the usual rules of the game, when you have to beg for money, beg, write, he, without thinking twice, simply invested all his savings in the renovation. And then we received very slow, sluggish and poor support from the republic. Microdoses. He asked: “Do you regret that we did this?” And I said no, of course I don’t regret it. There really is no money left, everything is invested in these walls. Moreover, these are not Gogolev’s walls; the building was simply transferred for free use for a period of one hundred years for the exhibition of the collection.
And, as they say, friends are made in trouble. Some pseudo-friends, immediately after the departure of Kronid Alexandrovich, demanded back very large sums of money that were lent for repairs. But these are all money problems, life goes on. Although in a few days it will be a year since Kronid Alexandrovich has been gone, some component of him remains here. I never believed in this, but Kronid Alexandrovich is everywhere here.

– Did he work until the end?

“Of course, it’s scary to draw such a parallel, but after the death of Zhenya, his eldest son, he still stopped working with wood. He had two children from a previous marriage. Zhenya died while taking Kronid Aleksandrovich’s works to Moscow, just in time for Savely Yamshchikov’s exhibition in 2002. Kronid Aleksandrovich lived after that for a little over ten years. He restored those works that returned from the accident. They were all burned, the frames were broken. Some disappeared forever, and he managed to repeat one of them. His latest work is completely finished in carving, but not toned.

And this (we stop at a carved bas-relief where peasants in sheepskin coats are joyfully riding sleighs) is the penultimate work.

oh, since it hangs in the hall, I always say that it’s the last one. For the remaining works, very detailed, well-developed sketches were preserved, which were transferred to the board using tracing paper. And here he sketched with a pencil directly on the board and began to cut without any sketch - such was the skill in his hand.

– Does it also have a conditional name?

– Yes, “Winter” is probably with us, as always (laughs).

“We know that before the death of Kronid Alexandrovich there was still a very unpleasant and, probably, difficult moment for him. This is a trial with a vodka company...

– ...with Aalto, yes. The impudence was amazing. Well, what is it, the vodka label uses the work of Kronid Aleksandrovich.

On a huge carved canvas we find a peasant who, “like a stranger’s wife, hugged a birch tree”...

– My husband is a lawyer, and it was he who suggested suing. Dad waved his hand and said, do what you think is necessary. Again, it was unpleasant that some pseudo-friends at the trial spoke on the other side and lied mercilessly. This was terrible for him, disgusting.
The Lahdenpokh court made a modest decision, but the Supreme Court added a lot, something like four hundred thousand. Kronid Aleksandrovich did not need this money personally; it went to repay the debts that we had after the global renovation.
By the way, this is the work that Aalto used for its commercial purposes for ten years. The designer boasted in court and said that he had completely modified it and that this was a new work. In fact, he just kind of flattened it on the computer and put some kind of sun there.
Copyright is, of course, an issue. Kronid Aleksandrovich’s works are still in use today. For example, on electric trains they sell maps of Karelia, decorated with a frame from this work. Even the government of our republic prints a calendar with the appearance of the new head, and on the calendar is the work of Goglev. It is not indicated that this is his work, nor that it is published with permission, there is nothing at all. This is exactly the job (points with his hand). Just like that, without any twinge of conscience. But with Aalto it was really offensive, so we went to the end.

– Did he manage to recover from this trial?

- Yes, I think he has recovered. A very difficult event that actually crippled Kronid Aleksandrovich was the theft of works...

- Was this recently?

- The year before last. A very blatant theft. After the renovation, we didn’t have bars in our small hall: we removed them while we were replacing the windows. The gang worked almost from Rostov-on-Don, on the order of some gypsy baron. It worked very cleanly. On the third of January, when we had a lot of people, they simply opened the window, right here. Some talked to the caretaker, who doesn’t see anything - we have a remote zone, this small hall. Then, as if on purpose, the two review cameras did not work. They brought out a huge clock, about twenty meters, can you imagine? That’s where the watch with the rook and Väinämöinen was stolen from. My caretakers turned out to be such bunglers that they stole it on the third of January, and they found it on the eighth. We walked around for five days, turning off the lights, and didn’t see that there was no clock (sighs). And the clock disappeared forever. They also demand that I order an examination of that work. A real examination costs about fifty thousand. They say: “Masha, we don’t have that kind of money, so if you need us to initiate a criminal case, you must first do an appropriate examination, please.” That is, my work was stolen, and I also have to order an examination.

– A whole series of tests at the end...

– Kronid Aleksandrovich was a very powerful man. Even at a deeply respectable age, over eighty, when he was already ill, such strength of spirit was felt... felt unconsciously by everyone who visited us.

Museum, Cultural and Exhibition Center named after K.A. Gogolev

The museum is a must-see when visiting the city of Sortavala! (c) Team "Ecotourservice"

The cultural and exhibition center named after K. A. Gogolev united two areas: a unique collection of the artist’s works and artistic, educational and educational activities in the field of fine arts. Both of these directions are inextricably linked with the name of their founder - People's Artist of Russia - Kronid Aleksandrovich Gogolev.

The center's activities are aimed at satisfying the cultural and aesthetic needs of the population and attracts the attention of all residents and guests of the city without exception. The main part of the exhibition in the Exhibition Hall consists of works using a unique wood carving technique. The artist’s paintings and graphics are also presented. Cultural and Exhibition Center named after. Gogoleva K.A. has wide opportunities in the field of culture and fine arts: these are exhibition services, excursion activities, additional education (lectures, master classes, etc.) for everyone, etc.

The exhibition hall named after Kronid Aleksandrovich Gogolev is located in an ancient Finnish building built in 1899. The unique collection of People's Artist of Russia Kronid Aleksandrovich Gogolev is stored here and is available for inspection.

Kronid Gogolev is an outstanding personality for our city, a professional artist who worked in a unique manner, known throughout the world. The main part of the works on display are sculptural reliefs in wood; you can also see paintings by the author. The theme of the Russian North, expressive nature, ordinary people, their way of life and holidays are vividly reflected in his work.

The author lived in Sortavala for more than half a century, and it is not surprising that Gogolev created many works with images of the city and the Karelian epic Kalevala. In different reliefs, the artist managed to use the inherent warmth of natural material in wood, plasticity, the play of shades of natural color, to convey the shimmer of water, the breath of forest thickets, and the mystery of epic tales of the past. Wood is a generous material - it absorbs the artist’s energy, talent and skill, and while viewing the exhibition, everyone receives a piece of this gift, peace and joy. Travel agencies must include a visit to the Exhibition Hall in their excursion programs.
In addition to the main collection, artists, photographers, sculptors from Sortavala, St. Petersburg, Moscow and other regions regularly exhibit in the Hall. During his long and fruitful life, Kronid Aleksandrovich himself organized many exhibitions, and we are happy to continue this good and necessary tradition.

Exhibition Hall opening hours:

• During the summer period from June 1 to August 31: from 10 a.m. until 20:00
• In other months from 10 a.m. until 17:00

Price-list:

• The cost of a full ticket, including photography, is 100 rubles.
• The cost of a ticket for citizens of preferential categories is 50 rubles.
• Viewing the exhibition is free for children under 7 years of age. And also for students of specialized universities (fine arts, art history, creative arts, museum studies).
• The cost of excursion services per group is 100 rubles. The group is formed from 5 people.
• Video filming by agreement with the Administration - 500 rubles.

* Photos from the museum’s website and from the collection of Iraida Prokopik.

In the last cruise post we visited the Ruskeala mountain park. After the park, we went to Sortavala, and began our acquaintance with the city with the exhibition gallery of the artist Kronid Gogolev - a wonderful place that you should definitely visit if you find yourself in Sortavala!

Most of all, Kronid Gogolev is known for his “wooden” paintings and wood carvings. Although he has works in oils, watercolors, and graphics. But the fame of his wooden volumetric panels is loud, and that’s why we first of all started looking at wood.

The gallery is large and bright

and there is a lot of work! A sort of journey to the half-ancient, half-fairytale Sortavala, the country of the Korels, who live by fishing, crafts, with winter festivities, summer gatherings around the fire...

I bought a beautiful large album as a souvenir, because... You can’t photograph everything there well, but you still want to look at it and read it later. The works are very different: small and huge, panels and carved clocks, round and standard format... And everywhere there are a lot of details, you want to look at everything very carefully. All this beauty was carved from linden.

So, let's look at individual works.

1. Tea Party, 1996

2. Winter, 1991

Pay attention to the frames, which are a work of art in themselves!

3. But this picture is not in the album, but I really like it

4. Cozy still life

5. A very stormy lake, Ladoga is no worse than the sea

and the ship is so skillfully carved, and every wave!

6. And even the weaving of a basket in the hands of a woman in another picture is done in great detail

7. This very impressive panel “Bird”, 1992, more than a meter high

bird of prey

I wonder what legend the artist based this work on

8. And with the help of this panel “On Vacation”, 1998, I want to show the multi-layered nature of the paintings

you can look inside the paintings

In the album we looked at selected works of the artist in other techniques. He has many carved objects - for example, this wonderful ladle

there are oil works

wonderful watercolors

and graphics. Ladoga skerries:

The album also contains a very warm article about the artist, Kronid Aleksandrovich Gogolev:

“In the center of the ancient town of Sortavala (formerly Serdobol), on the shores of Lake Ladoga, there is an inconspicuous two-story building of Finnish architecture. An exhibition hall of works by the People's Artist of Russia Kronid Aleksandrovich Gogolev is located here.
Local residents and tourists who come from all over the world want to visit the famous master to see the beauty of the Russian North. No matter how tempting the travel routes in Karelia may be, many people want to visit Sortavala to admire the wonderful paintings of wood carvings. Yes, I didn’t make a reservation, namely with paintings, since what the artist depicts with a brush, Kronid Gogolev does with a chisel. This technique is called "deep multi-layered relief".

The artist's biography is as interesting as his paintings. He was born in 1926 in the village of Prutskoye, Novgorod province, in the family of a former priest. His father gave him the rare name Kronid, which means “Zeus”. As a sixteen-year-old boy, he went to the front. He took part in the battles for the liberation of the Leningrad region, Estonia, Poland, and Eastern Bohemia. The war ended in Germany. He was wounded and shell-shocked. In a word, there was more than enough military bravery. He was awarded many military awards. Among them are the medal “For Courage” and the Polish Order. After the end of the war he served in the Baltic
navy. He was demobilized only in the fall of 1950.

I wanted to study so much! I went to the eighth grade at one of the evening schools in Leningrad. He worked and at the same time attended courses at the Mukhina Art School. In 1953 he entered the Leningrad Art and Graphic Pedagogical School. Wonderful teachers taught here at that time. Having received good pedagogical training, Kronid Gogolev left at the invitation to Karelia. He worked for four years in the village of Kestenga, in the north of the republic, then moved to the city of Sortavala. At the same time, he taught at a school and studio for amateur artists, worked as a graphic designer at a local theater, and studied by correspondence at the Herzen Leningrad Pedagogical Institute. An indefatigable worker, he organized an exhibition hall in the building of the Sortavala Art School, where venerable artists from Moscow, Leningrad and Petrozavodsk happily organized exhibitions.

Kronid Gogolev spent summer practice with children in the most picturesque places of the Ladoga region and on the island of Valaam. And if his students did not become artists, then, without a doubt, many of them learned the main thing - to see the beauty of the surrounding nature, to value the feeling of belonging to it. In the summer, students and teachers from Leningrad, as well as artist friends, began to come to Karelia for plein airs with Gogolev. They helped him in organizing and holding exhibitions, and when Kronid began working with wood, art historians from Moscow Olga Voronova and Savely Yamshchikov provided him with invaluable support and creative assistance.

I remember how in the late seventies, inspired by the first successes in his endeavor with wood, Kronid Gogolev spent the early hours of dawn working in a cramped room above the school classrooms. Not everyone understood him at that time; colleagues from the Union of Artists of Karelia looked down on his eccentricities. There are few woodcarvers, but this is an applied art. Where does he care about painters! In 1984, after two exhibitions in Moscow: at the Architectural Institute and the exhibition hall on Kalininsky Prospekt, people started talking about Gogolev. “This is a discovery! This is the revival of the lost achievements of the Russian school of wood carving, but at a new, higher level,” was the opinion of experts. Numerous visitors crowded the capital's halls, marveling at the miracle. In the carved reliefs, the artist managed not only to use the inherent warmth of natural material in wood, plasticity, the play of layers and shades of natural color, but also to convey the shimmer of water when it shimmers and rears up in the waves, the breath of forest thickets, their power and mystery. Despite
lack of colors, his works cannot be called colorless, since they create a feeling of depth, volume, air depicted in the landscape of Lake Ladoga, the sights of the island of Valaam, favorite corners of the city of Sortavala and even epic tales of the past. In his wooden paintings, buildings and bridges are depicted in the smallest detail, and the figures of people are so expressive that the artist managed to achieve true monumentality and completeness even in small-sized paintings.

The rare gift of Kronid Alexandrovich delights everyone who once saw his work..."

You can stay in the museum for as long as you like, looking at the paintings again and again. For those who are going to the museum: there is an absolutely wonderful bookstall with a rich selection of local history literature, as well as very good postcards!

Well, we’re going for a walk around Sortavala!

All posts with photos from this trip can be viewed by tag

Valentina Balakireva



People's Artist of Russia Kronid Gogolev(1926 - 2013) was born into the family of a priest in the Novgorod province near Staraya Russa. The father gave his son a rare name in honor of “Zeus.” In 1941 he graduated from a seven-year school and from the age of sixteen he joined the partisans and on the fronts of the Great Patriotic War (two medals “For Courage” and “For the Capture of Koenigsberg”). In 1953 - 1957 he studied at the Leningrad Art and Graphic School (1953 - 1957) and worked in Karelia as an art teacher and graphic designer. In 1966 he graduated in absentia from the Faculty of Art and Graphics of the Leningrad Pedagogical Institute named after Herzen.

In Sortavala, the artist for the first time turns to wood carving using the technique of “deep multi-layered relief”. His first works did not find a wide response and understanding among his colleagues, who looked down on his “eccentricities.” Only over time it was realized that there had been a revival of the lost achievements of the Russian school of wood carving at a higher level. In 1989, a personal exhibition hall of the artist’s works was opened in Sortavala.

Gogolev's works, enlightened mainly by the Russian North, are in museums in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Sortavala, Valaam and in private collections in the USA, Japan, Germany, Finland and Sweden. The artist’s works are in the personal collections of Vladimir Putin, the family of Boris Yeltsin, Anatoly Chubais and many other famous Russian and foreign figures.

In Karelia, in the center of Sortavala, in a modest two-story building of Finnish architecture, there is an exhibition hall of works by the People's Artist of Russia Kronid Gogolev.


http://i.imgur.com/BG0vqQX.jpg

Here and below are photographs of Valentina Balakireva

Master of wood carving, Honored Worker of Culture of the KASSR, Honored Worker of Culture of the RSFSR, member of the Union of Artists of the RSFSR, People's Artist of Russia, Honorary Citizen of the city of Sortavala, Honorary Citizen of the Republic of Karelia, Honored Worker of Culture of the RSFSR, awarded the Order of the Orthodox Church of St. Daniel of Moscow, III degree.

Born on July 13, 1926 in the village of Prutskoye, Novgorod region. The name Kronid means "son of Kronos." After graduating from junior high school, he went to the front. At first he helped the partisan movement. In 1943 he was sent to the active army on the Leningrad Front.

After being demobilized in 1950, he went to evening school. In 1951 he entered courses at the Mukhina School. In 1953, he was nevertheless admitted to the art and graphic school, being 10 years older than other students.

After defending his diploma in 1957, he went on assignment to the village of Kestenga (Karelia, Loukhsky district), where he worked at a boarding school until 1961.

Then he moved to Sortavala, where he continued his teaching career. At the same time, he studied by correspondence at the Institute named after A.I. Herzen at the Faculty of Art and Graphics and worked as a graphic designer in the folk theater.

In 1966, Kronid Gogolev completed his studies and received an offer to organize a Children's Art School, where he taught for 20 years.

In Sortavala, the artist began to become interested in wood carving. “Perhaps I even took up wood because I realized that everything I had done before was something I could no longer achieve, this was my ceiling... And the turning point was that I decided to make my drawings in some kind of material, and when touched a tree, I lost peace for several decades and gained such meaning...” (memoirs of Gogolev K.A.).

I started working with small sculptures, small figures. Then he began to apply relief on the vessels. I made a series of bread boxes with openwork and relief ornaments.

Then he moved on to the technique of monolithic (without the use of glued parts) multi-layer carving, creating sculptural reliefs with elements of the landscape. Most often, the master used linden, alder, and sometimes New Zealand yelotong (softer and having a more yellow tint).

The subjects for the paintings were folk holidays and everyday life, fragments of the epic “Kalevala”, northern nature...

In 1984, two personal exhibitions were held in Moscow with great success, which brought him fame and popularity. In 1985, the masters were admitted to the Union of Artists of the USSR.

Since 1986, Kronid Aleksandrovich has devoted himself entirely to the work of an artist, leaving teaching.

Since 1989 K.A. Gogolev began to collaborate with Finnish masters (E. Rynnanen, O. Kentta, E. Luostarinen), participated in various seminars and master classes. The style and themes of the works have changed. More attention was paid to the history of Sortavala when it was a Finnish city. The relief has become deeper and more multifaceted, the tinting is more rich and velvety.

But towards the end of his life, the artist returned to stories about the Russian village (“Bazaar”, “Winter Holiday”, “Village Celebration”).

The master died on April 10, 2013. There are no direct successors. Finnish carvers have simpler plots. In Russia, the main goal of paintings is to sell. No one else has such voluminous, multifaceted plots, woven into the context of nature and architecture, worked out in detail (one work took several months) like Kronid Gogolev’s.

In 1989, a personal exhibition hall was opened in Sortavala. Also, selected works are kept in the Polytechnic and Museum of Decorative and Applied Arts in Moscow, in the Ethnographic Museum of St. Petersburg, in the Museum on Valaam, and in private collections around the world.