Artist – Petrov -Vodkin
At first glance, the plot of the picture “Mother”, created in 1915, seems simple and ordinary. A young woman feeds a child in a poor peasant hut, where a village landscape is visible in a small window. However, an interesting feature characteristic of Petrov-Vodkin is manifested here-this is the ability to combine a specific everyday environment with the eternal and beautiful, to connect the earthly and heavenly. The artist raises the image of a woman over earthly life that the interior of the hut, household items act only as a framing to him. Just like in ancient Russian art, the traditions of which the artist addresses, in his picture there is no temporary framework, it embodies the idea of eternal enduring value and beauty of motherhood. It is no coincidence that this canvas acquired another, more often used name "District Madonna". The traditional blue-red clothing of the Virgin and the “icon” location of the figure also speak about the connection with the sacred way. Having eloquent and empty kiot in the red corner behind her mother – after all, she herself is the "embodied" Virgin, modern Mary, who went from the icon into the real world. Thus, the specific duality of the artist’s vision of the theme of mother and child has finally took shape – as at the same time a sacred image and household scene.
The artist developed a new coloristic system built on the use of three primary colors – red, blue and yellow, which is noticeable in a picturesque solution of the canvas. The spatial construction recalls the theory of spherical perspective, which the artist consistently developed in a variety of genres, mainly in still life.
