Makarov Viktor

Viktor Makarov (1932, Krivoy Rog - 2018) - Ukrainian "Van Gogh"

Artist, who was called Van Gogh of our time, Makarov Viktor - artist, member of the National Union of Artists of Ukraine and the International Professional Union of Artists, veteran of labor, a member of the city, regional, national and international exhibitions.

More than 55 years Makarov's brush created picturesque canvases, inspired and meticulously describing the beauty of his native land. He painted what his soul wanted, and he trusted it. His creativity is alive today, and each picture is like a song, filled with joy or sorrow.

In his landscapes there is a breath of love for the native land, a charge of optimism, which is expressed by emotional and color tone, and restless surface texture, and unexpected rhythms of the compositional structure. And each - as a call for harmonious unity with nature. When asked about his school and teachers, Viktor said: "My teacher - nature, and the school - the life.».

He arrived as a boy with his parents in 1946 to Ternopil from the mining town of Kryvyi Rih. Good people warned his Greek mother of her arrest at night, and the family hurriedly got ready and left for Ternopil. That's how his family escaped Stalin's repression. They got to Lviv, and from there to Ternopil, where they settled down for good.

Apparently, after the miners' quarries here in Galicia, the young Makarov was struck by the lush greenery, the colorfulness of the sky. Impressed so much that he wanted to splash out his feelings. Found a brush and paper, which became his dearest friends for life.

He got interested in drawing. And since there was an art studio not far from the house, his mother decided to take him to the painters to see if his son really had any talent or if it was just a whim. He took a naive little drawing with him, and one of the artists dipped his brush in paint and handed it to him: "Well, paint a bell". He drew, and this "exam" was enough for the already famous artists Alexei Zavadtsev and Viktor Pavlov to agree to admit him to science.

He was employed as a janitor in the studio, a year later he was promoted to apprentice, and then he became a foreman. And in 1950, when the Art Fund was organized, he went there. He began to receive orders for copies, and he was very happy when the work was successful. He did not finish school and went to work as a set designer in a theater. That was his school.

It was possible to graduate from the then popular Krupskaya Academy in Moscow, but the budding artist felt no such need. He worked and learned from the masters of their craft. And, as he often repeats - from nature, it is from her the artist absorbed all its manifestations. This allowed Makarov V. to lovingly convey color on the canvas and leave in each work a piece of the mood of his soul.

In his landscapes, it seems, quite ordinary motifs are permeated with light and woven from the rainbow generosity of colors. He is dominated by lyrical landscapes - now quietly contemplative, now dynamic, expressive, and with each new canvas changes the plasticity, enriches the texture of the painting, its color saturation, emotional impact.

At different times of the year Makarov Viktor fished in sketches precious treasures - the fragments of the ancient history of Ternopil region, which, though not survived, will remain forever on the canvases of the prominent Ukrainian painter.

And there is a whole cycle of the houses of his childhood and youth: his native home framed by trees, a forester's hut, a house in Petriki in the sunny gilding of autumn. Nostalgic calls nature, drowning in a cherry orchard; a cottage on the outskirts shrouded in apple blossoms, and next to it the evening sadly looks out in the outlines of sleeping houses.

Expressionism Makarov Viktor skillfully displays the spirit of nature, which literally comes to life on his paintings - the leaves trembling on the trees, like the flame of a candle, a cheerful cloud, locked in the frame, asking to fly, fresh spring leaves are filled with color from the sun kiss and wind, like a bow, plays the song of the forest. So many pictures - so much mood and joy of life.

Articles of our blog about the artist Makarov Viktor:

• "The artist Makarov is probably my biggest artistic discovery." - Inna Bogoslovskaya noted in her interview. Read more article "Makarov Viktor - natural artist's talent"
• online catalog of works by the folk painter - "The magic of the "Van Gogh of our time""