Winter in the Chegem Gorge – A. Ostryakin

Technical details:

Code: QM240
Period: Circa 1950
Origin: Caucasus
Artist: Aleksandr Aleksandrovich Ostryakin
Technique: Oil on canvas

Work dimensions: 40 cm x 50 cm
Dimensions with frame: 44 cm x 54 cm

Description:

Oil on canvas depicting a mountainous landscape, identified by the inscription on the back as the Chegem Gorge, in the Caucasus. The composition is structured around a perspective view that guides the eye along the stream in the foreground, whose snow-covered bed defines the depth of the lower plane. The pictorial rendering is characterized by a textured and directional brushstroke, which models the volumes of the rocky walls and renders the consistency of the snow through a color palette based on the contrast between the cold tones—grays, blues, and whites—of the rocks and the snow in shadow, and the warm, rich brown hues of the autumn vegetation. Available with an antique spruce frame (2 cm or 7 cm width).

Aleksandr Aleksandrovich Ostryakin (1927–1996) was a Soviet painter and member of the USSR Union of Artists since 1983. Primarily active in the Northern Caucasus, Ostryakin dedicated much of his artistic production to the representation of the landscapes of the Kabardino-Balkarian Autonomous Republic, consistently documenting the orographic and climatic specificities of the region, including the famous Chegem Gorge, a recurring subject in his mountain landscape works.