(Reproductions of works)
(Comments of art critics)
(With full list of exhibitions)
Gennady Maistrenko came into art rather late after his youth, work and
experience of a scientist were left behind. He has acquired skills of analysis
and generalization which are necessary in science. This had to influence his
works and it did.
They are notable for vigilance of analysis and breadth of
generalizations.
In his pictorial suite “Temples of Russia” has found a bright expression of nearly the main feature of national temple architecture - its relation with nature and landscape. Owing to this relationship, the architect’s conception gets final expression and the landscape is filled with spiritual content. Gennady Maistrenko checks this idea again. He is a scientist and takes nothing for trust: he needs his own experience of cognition. He is a scientist, and he looks for new and new impressions - there cannot be too much of them. Maistrenko varies his subjects. Orthodox temples of Moscow Kremlin and Pokrova on the Nerli River, Russian “miracle of miracles”, the Pokrovskaya church in Kizhi - all of them are set in the bends of rivers and bends of lakes, in the verdure of gardens and groves. Above them is clear or cloudy above them, rising or setting sun. The winds fly and drives clouds above them. Nature lives and temples live together with it. There is a great variety of them: majestic and orthodox to poor and unknown. All of them endowed in landscapes with a single, as in life, meaning. They spiritualize the Earth and human life. They say the Earth roads, if they are really needed, lead to temples - lofty and eternal things.