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For the past two decades, Victor Lysakov’s modern expressionistic art could only be found at international exhibitions, in private collections or inside his own painting studio in Moscow, Russia. The renowned artist holds a vault containing hundreds of masterpieces. For the first time ever, 40 of these prolific pieces have been released to the American public.

For art enthusiasts living in or traveling to California, a side trip to the first exclusive Lysakov gallery in Pacific Grove is a worthwhile detour. For those outside California, never fear – your local fine art gallery may soon display Lysakov’s art on their walls. A distinct group of hand-selected galleries nationwide have been offered the Lysakov Distributor opportunity; your neighborhood gallery might be one of them.

Named one of “The Best European Artists,” Lysakov has participated in several prestigious exhibitions and auctions in Russia, Poland, Germany, Sweden, Austria, France and Italy. Using oil or acrylic on canvas, Lysakov prefers brilliant, unmistakable hues – his color palette is very distinct. Each painting is its own unique creation and exudes a certain depth. New or seasoned, trusting or suspicious, frightened or fearless, the artist challenges you to grow bored with his paintings.

The local mayor, savvy art collectors and local design firms have unanimously agreed that Lysakov’s art rivals paintings found in upscale metropolitan art galleries in San Francisco and New York. In what the company considers a groundbreaking revolution in modern art, Lysakov’s work is not entirely subjective. A captivating story accompanies each image, giving the viewer riveting insight on the artist’s muse.

At first glance, the modern expressionistic work of Victor Lysakov might invoke an unexpected reaction – curiosity, mystery and even fear. But after closer inspection, the eccentric becomes extraordinary and the weird, wonderful. Lysakov challenges the viewer to conquer their fear – paintings should not be scary. “They merely depict life,” he says. “Sometimes the scariest things in life are the most trivial ones.”

He began experimenting first with watercolor, but now paints almost exclusively with oil or acrylic on canvas. Though never classically trained, Lysakov studied Rembrandt’s and Bryullov’s techniques. A self-taught artist, he read books incessantly, and spent hours upon hours in museums.

Born in Siberia in 1952, Lysakov discovered his artistic talent at a young age. “It was when I was six years old that I realized, for the first time, that the most natural and the most fitting way for me to carry on a conversation with the world was through the visual language.”

In early adulthood, Lysakov veered off the creative path and focused on a more traditional education – engineering. In 1975, he earned his MS in Physical Chemistry from Moscow State Institute of Steel and Alloys. In the decade following, he established a successful career in various military machine building plants. At one time, he was even accountable for over 700 employees under his command. In 1984, he attained his Ph. D. in Technical Sciences from Lomonosov State Institute of Fine Chemical Technology in Moscow.

Lysakov’s paintings range in image size from a humble 14×14 to a majestic 58×50. All are offered at an extremely low edition size of 395 Signed and Numbered (S/N) and 30 Artist Proofs (A/P) giclee canvas prints.

Giclee (pronounced zhee-clay) is a French term roughly meaning “spray or squirt” which refers to the digital printing process. During printing, millions of microscopic droplets of ink per second are applied to the print media. A giclee is a high-end fine art print often recognized as the next best thing to owning the original.

Artists at all levels and in a wide variety of media are creating prints using giclee technology. Buyers, attracted by the high quality and dynamic reproduction of giclees, have triggered a giclee explosion; while the fine art print market increases by about three percent annually, the giclee market is growing at more than 60 percent annually. In a $2.8 billion print market dominated by lithographs and serigraphs, giclees now total $160 million annually – and growing. According to CAP Ventures, digital fine art is expected to reach a retail value of $600 million by 2007.

Lysakov Art Company, Inc. is located at 305 Forest Avenue in charming Pacific Grove, California, in the heart of one of the nation’s art capitals: the Monterey Peninsula. On-site, the 4000 square foot facility houses the corporate offices, publishing headquarters and the first-ever exclusive Victor Lysakov Gallery.

Heather Neal is the VP of Sales and Marketing for Lysakov Art Company, Inc., the exclusive publisher for renowned Russian artist Victor Lysakov. For more information please visit: http://www.lysakovartcompany.com.

“Any work that aspires, however humbly, to the condition of art should carry its justification in every line.” – Joseph Conrad

When you finally decide on a course of action, all the usual psychological blocks are bound to occur. Where shall I begin? Have I a right to make a choice, based on any sensible guides? Is a piece of ceramics a work of art? Is a piece of Tiffany glass? Is a rug designed by Matisse? Should I buy a painting… a print… a drawing?

There is no crystal-clear answer. As I have tried to indicate in foregoing chapters, you are dealing with your own personal reactions, as well as with certain rules and laws which are vague, at best.

One of the first muddles that need clarifying is the sharp line often drawn to set off arts from crafts. I cannot see why these two should be so summarily opposed to each other. How can anybody decide at first blush that a man who has a sense of form, an eye for color, and a definite quest for the beautiful is producing only a vessel – if he spins a lovely pot on his wheel, applies glowing glazes, and fires his work to produce a handsome jar glowing with a jewel-like finish? Yet there are critics and collectors who would dismiss the man’s work with a snobbish shrug that it is a fine example of the potter’s craft… but as a work of art there is no room for it.

Why, I ask, this strange, if fine, distinction? Is it because the jar is intended for functional use and the higherbrows believe such a pragmatic approach precludes it from joining the upper world of “fine arts”?

Let us go back almost 3,000 years to a Greek potter in his workshop as he formed a vessel for oil or wine. The term “vase” is now applied to most of the early Greek ceramic pieces; but their original purpose was functional… for everyday use. On such vases we see indications of an entirely new way of looking at things by the artist. He was no longer hidebound by the old style he had inherited from earlier Egyptian forms. Yet there was still the same regard for a sharp outline and exact symmetry. So vases from this period are not only valuable for their beauty of color, dimension, and proportion; they are esteemed for their obvious role in shaping a new course for the artist to follow as he broke the shackles of a hardened past. Yet it is clear that the objects as originally created had a humble purpose indeed. Such intent has not lessened their artistic validity or value.

Let us go even farther back into history. Museums which own objects from the Sumerian period display them proudly. In the University of Pennsylvania Museum there is a gold cup used by Queen Shu-Bad of Mesopotamia. It has a graceful form, a delicate gold color, and intricate decorative fluting. Obviously it was designed to provide the queen with a drinking vessel. Is it therefore less beautiful than it would have been had it lacked practical purpose?

The same will naturally apply to the pottery tomb figures of the Ming dynasty in China… to T’ang glazed pottery… to the heroic bronze cats and baboons of the Egyptians. Recently I saw a cover design for the bulletin of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, showing a drawing of an Incan Empire Poncho, made about 1500. It was an almost pure design… with cubes of black and white. At the top was a reverse triangle of deep brown. I have seen many paintings of the abstract school which could have hung side by side with this poncho reproduction.

So I say: judge by the results and forget the notion that one can always erect a false fence to separate the beautiful from the functional. If the object is beautiful to you, then it is worthy of your collector’s eye and instincts. This attitude can open up many new fields to you – for example, the folk arts.

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When Albrecht Durer died in 1528 he left some 80 paintings, over 100 etchings, about 200 wood carvings and 800 drawings behind as his cultural legacy. His artwork has deep stories and hidden inner meanings of which many have only been theorized on. Below are some of his works and the theories on the meaning behind them.

Knight, Death and the Devil (also known as The Rider):

An engraving carved in 1513 by Durer, Knight, Death and the Devil, also known as The Rider, represents an allegory on Christian salvation. Unflustered either by Death who is standing in front of him with his hour-glass, or by the Devil behind him, an armored knight is riding along a narrow defile, accompanied by his loyal hound. This represents the steady route of the faithful, through all of life’s injustice, to God who is symbolized by the castle in the background. The dog symbolizes faith, and the lizard religious zeal. The horse and rider, like other preliminary studies made by Durer, are derived from the canon of proportions drawn up by Leonardo da Vinci.

The Knight and the Landsknecht (Soldier Servant):

This woodcut was created in about 1497. It has been suggested by Friedlander (universally recognized as the greatest expert on Dutch and German paintings) that the subject is Saul on the way to Damascus to pursue the Christians who had fled Jerusalem.

Three Peasants in Conversation (Marketplace Peasants):

This scene has been connected by a number of commentators to the peasant uprisings of the period. It should be remembered, however, that Durer’s wife Agnes sold her husband’s woodcuts and engravings in a stall in the market square of Nurenberg , as well as at the fairs in other cities. Peasants were ever-present at these events, as vendors as well as buyers. The sword which the pheasant uses for a cane is similarly used as a satirical accessory in Martin Schongauer’s engraving, Pheasant Family Going to to Market.

This engraving is related to the Sol Justitiae and to the Rustic Couple in technique, especially in the horizontal shading devoid of crosshatching.

The original plate was sold to Prince Dolgorouky, a Russian collector, in 1852. Its present wherabouts is not known. An impression of this engraving is on display at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.

Peasant Couple Dancing (also known as Dancing Peasants):

There are different views and theories on what Durer intended by this image.

Koehler describes this print succinctly as follows: For individuality and for the happy expression of a transient mood in face as well as pose, these Dancing Pheasants are quite as much without rivals in Durer’s oeuvre as knight, Death, and Devil.

Wolfflin comments that in spite of the elephantine stamping of their feet, the impression and the form are magnificent. The pheasants are not shown sneeringly as earlier, but as a character study.

Tietze finds that the group fills the picture area in a magnificent manner and, in spite of the massiveness, a feeling of their being swept off their feet is conveyed.

But Panofsky, in contrast, commented that it is a spectacle of statuesque heaviness and immobility; unambitious in content.

Evelyn Whitaker writes articles for German Toasting Glasses http://www.german-toasting-glasses.com which specializes in custom engraved wedding gifts from Germany.

Drawing has been around for centuries. In fact, wonderfully vital drawings and paintings by primitive peoples have been discovered, which proves that many thousands of years ago the art of drawing was there, innate, in mankind. Everyone can draw, for it is an inherent human trait far more natural than writing.

Unfortunately most people lose this power as they grow older, or rather it is overlaid by more complicated mental processes. It needs only the desire to reawaken it and the courage to proceed and rapidly the power to express what one sees, in drawing and in paint, comes back again.

So take courage and go ahead.

The first thing to get is a sketchbook: not too big a one but a handy pocket size that you can carry about at all times. You can of course buy a children’s drawing book for a few cents, but this has a flimsy cover and has to be folded or rolled to carry, and that spoils the page, so a sketchbook with thinnish cartridge paper and a good stout cover is the best investment in the end. See that the paper is not too thick or too rough in surface. Nothing harder than a 3B pencil is much use. Get a black Conte crayon or black chalk pencil with the wood round it, for this is the kind of pencil that will give you most satisfaction in sketching. Of course you will need a razor blade or sharp penknife because the breaking of points is a very frequent occurrence. Do not sharpen the pencil to a fine point – just a blunted point.

Now you have your sketchbook and your pencil, what are you going to look for? What are you going to start on? Don’t start straightaway on a landscape. Just focus your attention on a few simple things that are before you in the room you are in. Something the shape of which attracts your interest, say a decanter, or a wine glass, or a vase of flowers. Draw a definite shape on the blank page of the sketchbook with a firm, thick line – say a rough oblong. Count this as your picture space: into this defined shape you are going to put your drawing.

Then begin with the part of the selected object that interests you most. Perhaps it is the bulge of the decanter – boldly draw the curve of the right-hand side and then look across and draw the corresponding curve of the other side; then go upward to the lip and the stopper, drawing first one side and then the other; then look at the base, the dark curve where the decanter rests upon the sideboard. You now have the shape of the object – then relate this to the glass that is near it; notice the size of the glass in relation to the decanter and repeat the process, taking into account where the two objects are placed in your oblong space.

Continuing to practice these techniques will help you get a grasp for the way drawing should feel and ultimately look.

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