Coloristic Searches of Modern Russian Artists: The White Colour Palette of the Easel Painting by Maria Pak

Abstract

The article attempts to consider the work of the Moscow artist Maria Pak in the context of coloristic searches in Russian painting based on artists’ work with the white colour. The article opens with a brief outline of the development of the doctrine of colour in the European art of the early modern and modern periods. The main part is devoted to the analysis of the latest exhibition of the easel painting (March 2023) by Associate Professor of the V.I. Surikov Moscow State Academic Art Institute, Maria Pak, student of I.L. Lubennikov. Particular attention is focused on the “winter” canvases in which the creative task is to paint white on white. The author of the article makes the conclusion that colour preferences are not only determined by social, national and other conditions for artistic culture development, but also closely related to a person’s ability to empathize. The author comes to this conclusion considering the white colour palette of M. Pak’s easel painting in a broad cultural context — appealing to the works of painters as well as to the poetic creations of Russian writers.

Keywords

• history of colour
• white colour
• monumental painting
• easel painting
• creative work of maria pak