Alexander Golovin

Alexander Yakovlevich Golovin was born in 1863 in Moscow. He spent his childhood in Petrovsk-Razumovskoye among the poetic nature of the old mansion. He studied at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture.
Golovin was a colorist virtuoso. Researcher of his life and work Dora Kogan writes: “Just as there is absolute pitch in music, about Golovin it is possible to say that he has an absolute sense of color.”
In his works, the artist attached particular importance to color, working on paper or cardboard, and only for large size paintings applied a thin canvas with uneven soil. It is on such a canvas the work “Flowering Pond” is painted.
On both sides of the composition are two verticals, between which the artist’s inexhaustible fantasy intertwines branches and leaves of trees in a surprising way, creating a peculiar, bizarre green pattern, and underneath, as a counterweight of this entanglement and pattern, is the calm mirror of the pond. Golovin’s landscape beckons and attracts the spectator, instilling in him an irresistible desire to find himself on the shores of this flowering pond, in this paradise of Russian nature.
Alexander Yakovlevich was a master of various genres of easel painting and one of the most popular theatrical artists in Russia.
His workshop was located in the Mariinsky Theater. He was called the Magician of the Theatre because he performed the wonders of the scenography. Tours of the Russian opera and ballet abroad, organized by the genius impresario Sergei Pavlovich Diaghilev and named “Russian Seasons,” opened in Paris on May 6, 1908 by the opera “Boris Godunov” in Golovin’s set and costumes design. The opera was a stunning success. It was a triumph not only of the composer Mussorgsky and bass Chaliapin, but also the artist Alexander Yakovlevich Golovin.
A. Ya. Golovin at the Museum of Russian Art (Prof. A. Abrahamyan’s collection):
“Blooming Pond” The 1900-s
Sketch for man’s costume for K. Glouk’s pastoral “Queen of May”, 1919 Sketch for stage design for N. Rimski-Korsakov’s opera “The Maid of Pskov”