Plein air in painting by Konstantin Lomikin: transformation of the image from “direct impression” to “indirect artistic transformation”

Abstract

The article examines the work of one of the prominent artists of Odesa, People’s Artist of Ukraine Konstantin Matveyevich Lomikin in a wide time range. Following the traditions of Odesa artists, the artist chose plein air as his main artistic method. In the works of the early period (early 1950s), which had the character of genre compositions, his attention was focused not on the plot, but on solving the painting tasks associated with the plein air. The artist was characterized by a desire to study the laws of light and shadow on a natural motif. The beginning of the 1950s was the “era” of mastering the contrast, which gave impetus to the search for a more conventional decorative solution in the future. The evolution of the pictorial language was manifested in the cleansing of the palette from heavy black and brown shades. A careful study of the collection of the Odesa Art Museum, in particular the works of Costandi and Synitskyi, helped. Gradually, K.M. Lomykin’s painting became more and more decorative. The artist acquires a confident “molding of the form” with broad strokes of pure bright color, the certainty of the mass in space, the clarity of silhouettes. He conveys the form through light and color modeling – the color of lighting and, accordingly, the color of shadows with a richness of reflex relationships. The artist had a methodical approach: every time before going to the plein air, he set himself a certain painting task. This contributed to the concentration and desire for artistic transformation of the natural motif. In the art of Odesa, K.M. Lomykin developed an individual recognizable artistic style, which is characterized by a combination of decorative qualities (harmony of large color relations, clarity of silhouettes, flattening of space, graphic, expression of a broad brushstroke) with the features of plein air painting (depiction of the colors of objects in interaction with the light and air environment).