The most important aspect of the work of
Ilya Glazunov, whose entire life has been
interwoven with the atmosphere of a large
city – first St. Petersburg, and later,
Moscow – is his awareness of the inseparable
connection between man’s existence and the
world of nature. His appreciation of nature
is truly remarkable. Delight in the spiritual,
healing beauty of evening fields, the smooth
surface of lakes, or the sky filled with
thunderclouds filled his soul from the days
of his early childhood. “How wonderfully
fragile and tender is nature in the Russian
North!” he writes in his book “The Road
to You.” “The splashing of mountain lakes,
the birches and aspens murmuring in the
breeze fill the air with such a quiet, inexpressible
music… Place your ear to the ground, and
it will tell you passionately of age-old
secrets hidden within it, of past generations
of people, asleep in the earth beneath the
lush spring grass and the white-trunked
birches, their green leaves glowing in the
wind, as if on fire.…”
The artist sees beyond the external, objective
images of nature and understands it as God’s
creation, as his shrine. Like secret dark
whirlpools with their first covering of
ice are the ponds of the ancient St. Petersburg
park where the artist spent his childhood
and youth. Many landscapes typically feature
a solitary figure, as if underscoring the
artist’s loneliness and his deeply personal
vision of a troubled and sad world.
