Heavenly Warriors
icma
Visit Gallery: http://www.info.kiev.ua/icma/korsun.html
I do not like the USSR. I do not like Stalin. I do not like the 30s┘ but
such things as military honor.., as resistance.., as people who make a
choice after which they can nothing but die┘ These are my people.
Dmytry Korsun
Dashing young faces are lit by flashing white smiles. Sun glints off of
the canopies and wings of pre-World War II fighter planes soaring
through pink cloudscapes. A child's dream of flight and a tribute to
heroism and bravery come together on Dmytro Korsun`s canvases dedicated
to the airborne defense of the Spanish republic from fascist bomb during
the civil war of the 1930s.
The 38-year-old historian and artist remembers the early 20th century
perception of aviation as a glorious miracle, and romanticizes young
heroes who took to the skies alone to protect whole cities of their
countrymen.
Yet not of the 15 paintings depict actual combat. Korsun prefers to
dwell on the beauty of the aircraft when in peaceful harmony with the
natural landscape, soaring through clouds and over calm seas and country
hillsides. The series "Airforce" forms a triptych with a colorful,
impressionist portrait of a young pilot in uniform at the center,
surrounded by scenes of blue and red single-seat aircraft, sitting on
rural runways and gliding overtop of colorful windmills which recall the
foolhardy bravado of Spanish hero Don Quixote.
Korsun places his pilot portraits within the larger Slavic artistic
tradition of depicting, and thus canonizing, holy warriors, defenders of
the faith and motherland; for examples see countless iconic images of
Saint George slaying a dragon.
Impressionist renderings of red planes are scattered across fields of
blue, yellow and pink in "Spanish Republican Flag". Aircraft of similar
size but painted in realistic detail are barely noticeable in the
sweeping seascape "Poet's Sea" and among the pink sunlit clouds of
"Exupery".
Korsun`s big canvases show his passion for the sunlit heavenly expanse,
rooted in his love of landscapes and his boy hood dreams of flight.
"Freedom and wind. To dwell in the sky is a dream of every artist," says
Korsun.
Anna Kozmina
"Kyiv Post", April 17, 1998
Visit Gallery: http://www.info.kiev.ua/icma/korsun.html
Any comments are very appreciate.
Thanks.
Natalya
e-mail: ic...@info.kiev.ua