Lev Tchistovsky (1902-1969) Russian Nude Lithograph 60x73 Cm Framed

Lev Tchistovsky (1902-1969) Russian Nude Lithograph 60x73 Cm Framed ` Lev Tchistovsky is a Russian figurative painter specializing in female nudes. He trained at the School of Fine Arts in Saint Petersburg, where he benefited from the teaching of Savinsky and Eberling. Winner of the school of Saint-Peterburg, he left the USSR in 1925 and studied at the School of Fine Arts in Rome and Florence. He met Irena Klestova in Venice at the end of the 1920s. Also a student of the School of Fine Arts in Saint Petersburg, she exhibited her paintings at the Salon des Indépendants in Paris. Lev Tchistovsky marries her and settles in Paris, in the Montparnasse district. In his workshop at Impasse du Rouet, he rubbed shoulders with André Breton and Tamara de Lempicka. A member of the Salon des Indépendants in 1930, Lev Tchistovsky regularly exhibited his large canvases there. Portraits and nudes make up the bulk of his abundant output. The classical realism found in all of her works represents the eroticism and sensuality of the women of her time. Throughout his career, he relied on mythology, which was an inexhaustible source of inspiration for him. Passionate about icons, Lev Tchistovsky was preparing, shortly before his death, a book on the technique of the icon. The art historian Loukomsky describes him as an authentic resister of classical painting, whose technique borders on perfection, especially in his nudes. He died in his house in Cénevières, in the Lot, in 1969. Irena Klestova then donated several of his paintings to the Urban Cabrol municipal museum. There are also works by Lev Tchistovsky in the Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg. Robert Maxwell, the newspaper magnate, also acquired several of his works. The two works presented are perfectly representative of the work of Lev Tchistovsky, the first is a female nude executed with great precision and the second a mythological work whose subject is the "re-birth" of Ganesh. The artist represents in this painting three great figures of Hindu mythology: Shiva, Parvati and Ganesh. The God Shiva is the most venerated of the gods, he is represented with a third eye in the middle of the forehead, symbol of wisdom and a cobra around the arm; from her hair adorned with a crescent moon, symbol of the cycle of time, flows the Ganges, the sacred river of Hinduism. His consort Parvati, the daughter of the Himalayas, is endowed with great beauty. She embodies the benevolent form of Devi, the mother goddess and becomes the symbol of the loving wife. She holds in her arms their eldest son Ganesh. The painter respects in his representation the harmony, calm and beauty of the gods which are customary in traditional iconographic representations. Ganesh was born with a human head, but around the age of five, while he is guarding the door to the bathroom where his mother is, Shiva comes back from the war and has never had it. seen. Ganesh forbids his father to enter the room where his mother is as she had ordered him to. Furious at being contradicted by a child, Shiva chops off his head with the light ray coming from his third eye. Parvati informs her husband of her terrible mistake and asks him to restore her son's life. He then sends his servants asking them to bring back the head of the first living creature they come across. And it was the head of an elephant that they brought back. This painting is rich in symbol of Hindu mythology, other deities are represented such as the incarnations of Vishnu on earth the fish Matsaya. The rat, mount of Ganesh is also present.