The artist is self -wrapping
The topic of sports was one of the most popular in Soviet art of the mid-1920-1930s. Artists designed to form the ideal of a new person saw his prototype in physical cultures – young and beautiful people who, improving the body, temper the spirit. At this time, athletes become the main characters of Samokhvalov’s works. He dreamed of uniting them in a grand monumental composition. Perhaps that is why many of his paintings of those years seem fragments of a large multi -figure fresco. The artist himself spoke about physical education as “the joy of being”, which helps to overcome the difficulties “in the struggle to build a new life” and “educate love for a person”. “I loved physical education precisely as a culture of a healthy person, a lifeless and cheerful person … I was attracted by a healthy creative spirit in a healthy body”.
For the happiness of the people. Catalog of the exhibition of the Russian Museum in Malaga. 2018. WITH. 63.
