# Artist Yury Kuper

Ольга Слободкина

“The most precious thing in art is whatever is

inexplicable.”

Georges Braque

“Painting enables one to see things the way they

used to be when one looked at them with love.”

Paul Valery


All this is true about artist Yuri Kuper. Kuper's art among other great phenomena is inexplicable and therefore significant. His paintings always hint that mystery is nearby, in your soul and when you look at the world through the mind of the mysterious, inexplicable, incognizable any common object or landscape gets transfigured becoming a thing out of this world, participating in Eternity.

In arts so many things are transient, passing by, so when you see the contemplation of a real artist you don't want to come back to our phenomenal world for a long time. He is gripping you, the master, who paints his canvas with scrupulous love for hours on end like a convict, a happy prisoner rather, transferring onto it the currents of his inner substance brought forth by metaphysical ecstasy...

One would want to write something significant about a significant master. But can I really? The trees clouded by fog (or a veil of imagination?) are fading in and out,

they do not let you approach them, like icons, which now open up in myriads revelations of the Spirit, now fold themselves up into simple flat boards in case you might think you can communicate with them in the rush of our mundane life.

What is the price of contemplation? Maybe that of a whole life, which dissolves in the soul fading away into Infinity of the Past when there aren't those houses or

things anymore “as if the whole thing existed completely in the brain” as Reiner Maria Rilke said in “Duino Elegies.”

And what is the price of a mastership? Also that of a whole life accumulating a certain skill for years and only after decades acquiring a new quality, new shades of meaning.

Portraying concrete objects of a concrete epoch Kuper is always dissolving in Eternity.

Artist Dmitry Krasnopevtsev once said that any artist is always painting an icon, even if his subject is a fish skeleton or pieces of a broken jug. And he is always a co-

creator, not the Creator.

The Bolshoy Theatre in the snow, St. Isaak's Cathedral in the snow (or maybe they are covered by the patina of Time?), the mystic canals of Venice in winter, a theatre set (or a room interior?), the see in all its most sophisticated ranges of color

and mood or just a spoon, just a paint brush, just a palette knife as single representatives of a whole family of things, but at the same time carrying the traits of their owner - everything is immersed into the mystery of existence, the mystery of mastership, the mystery of art.

And everything is inexplicable.

Yuri Kuper has lived a long life - he spent the 1960s in Moscow, then emigrated to Israel, later became a citizen of England and consequently lived in France and the USA. And he would always come back to Russia, to his roots, to his friends, to his love, which is a lifetime thing... The artist has staged over 40 solo shows in the most prestigious galleries of the world. His work is in all the great art museums, including the Metropolitan Museum in New York, Victoria and Albert's in London, the Pushkin Museum in Moscow, the Tretyakov Gallery... He revealed himself as an outstanding theatre designer doing sets and costumes for many shows and as a subtle graphic artist. I was amazed to see his illustrations for Boris Pasternak's book “My sister life” - the size of a small table lid.

One would want to say something significant about the significant life and art. But can I really? Therefore - this is it. Full stop.