Churches. New Jerusalem
1917
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Location in museum
The Benois Wing
Open the panorama of the hall in the virtual tour
Room 73 - Period Late 19th century – Early 20th century
- CategoryLandscape
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Churches. New Jerusalem was one of a series of works inspired by the New Jerusalem Monastery outside Moscow. A typical example of Aristarkh Lentulov’s painterly plastics, it combines rich colours with dynamic and «vortex» forms. The artist smashes the Old Russian architecture into bright fragments decoratively similar to an original mosaic panel; every brushstroke rings out like a piece of smalt. Velimir Khlebnikov noted the revolutionary spirit of Lentulov’s art: «Steeples with high apertures bowed, like a man fractured by a stick suddenly stooping and clutching at his stomach or an ear of corn broken in several places ... The storm passed through his painting; one day it will pass through life and will smash many steeples.» Russian Museum: From Icons to the Modern Times. Palace Editions, St Petersburg, 2015. P. 284.