A celebrated Russian artist uses flowers, ballerinas to build bridges between cultures

On a 2-meter high, 5-meter wide canvas, flower petals are painted densely with thick oil colors. If you look at the painting from farther away, the petals - painted in different shades of blue - form an exquisite scene of waves on the sea.

The painting, entitled Flower Wave, is one of best-known works by Russian contemporary artist Lavrenty Bruni.

Bruni's paintings are being exhibited in China for the first time until Sept 29. With the theme Ballet and Blossom: Road to China, the two-week exhibition at Beijing's Poly Art Museum is displaying around 80 of Bruni's works, including oil paintings, watercolors, charcoals and sketches.

"Art does not need to be translated because painting is a common language," George Zinoviev, minister-counselor at the Russian embassy, said at the opening ceremony.

"In recent years Russian art has become more popular in China," he said. "This exhibition can increase mutual understanding and strengthen the cultural basis of bilateral cooperation."

Zhang Xi, head of the Poly Arts Museum, agrees with Zinoviev, saying that art is a bridge linking Western and Asian culture.

"The theme 'Road to China' is in line with China's Belt and Road Initiative, which promotes cultural connection among Eurasian countries," he says.

Born into a family of artists, Bruni is the 19th generation of his family. The Brunis have been prominent in northern Italy and Switzerland since the 16th Century,

Although he graduated from Moscow State Academic Art Institute, a prestigious art school in Russia, Bruni says the decisive stage of his career was when he attended private studio classes with well-known master of drawing Yunus Karimov, now a professor at a private academy of design and graphics in Hennef, Germany.

"I suddenly realized that what I really want is drawing. I want to spend the maximum amount of time on it. It was hard, I drew for four hours on weekdays, eight hours on weekends," he says.

The hard work paid off. Not only is Bruni well-known in his home country, but in recent years his works have also been exhibited around the world. Before coming to China, Bruni had hosted successful exhibitions in Australia and Japan.

He admits that exhibiting overseas is stressful, especially in a city where he is perceived in a different way than he is in Moscow.

"Each country has its own amazing environment and culture, which influences perception. And this is an invaluable experience," he says.

"Doing an exhibition in China is very interesting, as it is a country with long history and with a culture different from Russia. I love to see my works viewed by audiences from a variety of cultural backgrounds."

Flowers and ballerinas are two of the main subjects displayed at Bruni's exhibition in Beijing.

"As a poet composes letters into words, for me flowers are the basis of paintings," he said in his biography. "Flowers are the handwriting that allow me to write well. I can use flowers to draw everything - landscapes, still lifes, portraits. Flowers for me are like people."

Bruni says he loves to challenge himself with large-scale canvases and by using unconventional colors when painting flowers.

"I began to draw large flowers because it is very difficult," he says.

Bruni is a master of color control and likes the challenge presented by different colors. Realizing that the public was predisposed to like works with bright, clean colors, he decided to test himself and the audience by painting more flowers in dark colors, even black.

Another theme of the Beijing exhibition is ballerinas.

"Ballerinas are a furtherance of my admiration for female beauty in its more sophisticated manifestations. They have a different kind of beauty; their body silhouette is very different. On stage they seem hollow and yet incredibly graphic. Their movements are like a drawing," Bruni said. "For a painter, pursuing beauty is the eternal topic. For me, flowers and ballerinas are two forms of beauty."

Wang Zhong, honor professor and fellow at Repin Academy of Fine Arts, in St. Petersburg, Russia, says: "I have seen a lot of Russian painters' works. But this exhibition is unique. Bruni chooses flowers and ballerinas as his themes, and we can see that he is seeking harmony. This is also something that Chinese artists are always pursuing."

Bruni says cultural communication between China and Russia's still has a long way to go.

"For me, it is still insufficient," he says. But he notes that many Chinese people are now traveling to Russia to watch ballets and operas.

China also has many outstanding works of its own, he says.

"It is a pity that few Russian people know this. There is still a long way to go for China and Russia's cultural communication."

Contact the writer at [email protected]

(China Daily European Weekly 09/22/2017 page18)