Friday, April 15, 2011

A Russian Treat


Ivan Aleksandrov as seen through a reflective glass

 2011 is the official Italian-Russian cultural year, with many interesting events planned including
an Alexander Rodhencko exhibition in Rome and one about the Russian Avant-gardes in Palermo next fall.  
This also led to Russia having a booth at the Bologna book fair for the first time,
an event which as you may imagine was one of my personal highlights. 

The brave and charming Vladimir Semenikhin
The pièce de résistance of the exposition was the massive two volume edition
Children's Picture Books in the History of Russia, 1881-1939, produced by Vladimir Semenikhin at Samolet Design Studio
This visually stunning historical presentation includes hundreds of pages of children's books by leading Russian artists
some only published once, many lost to censorship and a series of dramatic political shifts. All the materials come from 
one of the best world collections of Russian, Ukrainian and Jewish books, compiled by Alexander (Sasha) Lurye.
Unfortunately the two volumes cost about 500 euros, so I am just going to keep on dreaming...

Young illustrator Ivan Aleksandrov held open workshops on Play with letters,
Photomontage Exercises and Diary/Collection


A variety of books was available for perusal and I took a number of photos.
As you can see, quite a few were of my favorite bright folk and trippy variety.


Many thanks to quete for providing the following translations and informations:

Lukomorye. Fairy-tale worlds by Tatiana Mavrina. 
You can read about what Lukomorye is here

This is part of Pushkin's poem "Ruslan and Ludmila" (it begins with a tale about Lukomorye
 that everyone in Russia knows by heart as all've learned it at school).
So the page contains a verse about a mermaid sitting on some boughs.

A collection of Russian lullabies called Bayu bayushki bayuillustrations by E. Vasnetsova. 
(sounding something like "buy-you buy-you-shki buy-you", these are meaningless words to make children sleep). 

This page is a lullaby which tells a cat not to walk around the neighbourhood, 
but to come and rock Masha to sleep; and for that he would be given a jug of milk,
 a piece of cake and his ears will be made gold, and his paws will be made silver.

Bukvaryonok (small ABC book) with illustrations by Georgy Yudin. 

On the right page is written "How the frog croaks? (croak croak)"

Between us by Vadim Levin and Renata Muha, illustrated by Sveta Ivanova
 "poetry, fairy tales and entertainments for communication with children". 

And here is a poetry about summer, morning and about a chicken who wants 
to become a rooster and have his comb grown up.

Thanks again, quete! It's wonderful to have such helpful and knowledgeable readers!

8 comments:

  1. The first one is "Lukomorye. Fairy-tale worlds" by Tatiana Mavrina. You can read about what Lukomorye is here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lukomorye . As i can judge from the next page this is part of Pushkin's poem "Ruslan and Ludmila" (it begins with a tale about Lukomorye and, i think, everyone in Russia knows it by heart as we all've learned it at school). So the page contains the verse which says about mermaid sitting on some boughs.

    The next one is collection of russian national lullabies and it called "Bayu bayushki bayu" (i don't know how to write this in roman letters ahah, it should be read something like "buy-you buy-you-shki buy-you"; and this is some meaningless words to make child sleep). Illustrations by E. Vasnetsova. The page from this book is a lullaby which tells a cat not to walk somewhere around neighbourhood, but to come and rock Masha to sleep; and for that he would be given a jug of milk, a piece of cake and his ears will be made gold, and his paws will be made silver (i don't know what does that means ahah, but it pictured literally though).

    The third is an ABC book which called "Bukvaryonok" (reads something like Book-war-yon-ok and has a meaning of "small ABC book") with illustrations by Georgy Yudin. On the page from there there is written (besides the word "kangaroo") "How the frog croaks? (croak croak)".

    And the last one is "Between us" by Vadim Levin and Renata Muha (sounds like Moo-ha), "poetry, fairy tales and entertainments for communication with children". And there is a poetry about summer, morning and about a chicken who wants to become a rooster and have his comb grown up.


    Don't know if it was useful but i love your blog very much so i wanted to help a little. Thank you.

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  3. Wonderful. I'd seen pictures of Ivan Aleksandrov's work on other blogs and was very intrigued. Dying to know more, thanks!

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  4. Thank you. I like the effect "through a reflective glass" very much.

    Ivan Alexandrov

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  5. Thank you very much. I was surprised. I am illustrator of the book "Between us". My name`s Sveta Ivanova.
    Your website is excellent.I have found lot of wonderful artists here.

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  6. Thank you Sveta, I have updated the info.

    ReplyDelete

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