Women in Love – Serge Marshennikov

Some time there are people who are just utterly beautiful, artists using their image to capture that radiance for an eternity on canvas, or on paper, or through photography. While beauty itself comes in many forms, as it is true that you can be stunningly beautiful to look at and then be a vacuous dark hole on the inside, equally you can be a truly beautiful person on the inside and look like the back end of a bus on the outside, it is usually the first which makes it in the artist’s eye.

Marshennikov captures the beauty of women at rest, in his series of work “Women in Love”. These are amazingly realistic paintings, with extraordinary intricate detailing. The lace on the girls top for example in this picture. It’s a stunning display of Marshennikov’s talent.

The girl, sleeping looks so peaceful, in her easy slumber, and so at peace with herself. Her soft skin and flaxen hair illuminated in the rooms light. She is modestly sensual, with a subtle view of her breast and nipple, but the rest of her ‘modesty’ covered, innocently unaware of her form or its impact.

Not everyone thinks of a highly art seeped culture when they think of Russia, in fact, ask most people what they think of when they think of Russia, and they will probably say vodka, but there is an amazing heritage of stunning art to be found across Russia and Marshennikov draws his inspiration from this culture. His colour palette and eye for detail remarkably held timelessly on the canvas. The soft lighting highlighting the fragility of the female form and contrasting it to the delicate fabrics.

Marshennikov takes a neoclassical technique and puts a modern twist to it, with some of the girls sleeping with head phones in, or posing in brightly coloured denim jeans, which creates a wonderful juxtaposition between art history and our modern time. If ever there was a style of painting which shows us that photography is not killing the paint brush, this is it.

If you want to see some more of Marshennikov’s work you can see some here

What do you think of Marshennikov’s work? Why not tell me in the comments? Like this post? Why not share it…