The art of Genya Gritchin

Surfing the internet I came across the art of Genya Gritchin, a Russian born painter who resides in Italy.

This particular painting caught my eye.
I was immediately entranced.

The painting harkens back to Renaissance artists and classical principles of art. The picture tells a story, and I was drawn in reading the story it communicated to me. The work reminded me of the art of Andrea del Sarto and a bit of Da Vinci — but there is also a modern current that I detected much like the neo-classical style of the 18th century—something you might find in the precise modeling of a Jean Ingres painting.

I began researching more about Genya Gritchin, as I knew very little about him and discovered these are precisely the artists that Gritchin declares he admires the most.

“I am driven by classical art and I would love to follow in the footsteps of the beloved artists from the past like Veronese, Da Vinci, Andrea del Sarto. I like the idea of art which is based on canons of ideal forms or divine ideal proportions. I particularly like these forms of art such as David and Ingres.”

Genya Gritchin

The backstory on Genya Gritchin is this: He is a classically trained painter, born in 1966 in the Soviet Union. At the age of six, he studied the Russian craft of Paleckh – painting lacquer boxes and wood cutting boards. At the age of ten, he attended classical art school, and at the age of twenty, he participated at the Surikov Fine Arts Institute in Moscow, where he obtained a master’s degree in art. Genya is now based in Umbria, Italy.

Gritchen writes:

« My art is based on primordial myths, sun, sky, and humans. The essence of everything is a myth and what will remain of us will be precisely this: a myth. »

The artists believes that the history of art is cyclical and that we are currently living at the end and the beginning of a new one based on canonic art (a return to classical Old Master’s art forms).

Visit Genya Gritchin’s website

Who are some of your favorite classical artists from the sixteenth century? Or do you have a favorite neo-classical painter from the 18th-century? Drop a comment here on the post. I’d love to hear from you!