Василий Шарапов и художественная жизнь Палеха второй половины 1930-х — начала 1940-х гг.
Vasily Sharapov and the artistic life of Palekh in the second half of the 1930s — early 1940s

Summary/Abstract: The essay is dedicated to Vasiliy Sharapov (1917—1942) — student of Palekh Art School named after M. Gorky in 1933—1938 and associate of the State Museum of Palekh Art in 1938—1941. The eight years of his study and work in Palekh embrace the time of significant change in the education of the new generation Palekh painters and in their activities under the Fellowship of Palekh artists, which replaced the Artel of ancient painting in 1933. The artists had to reorganize their relations with the governmental and municipal institutes at all levels, including the Palekh district formed in 1935. The adaptation of the forms and contents of their art production to the ideological standards of the “socialist society” and the new aesthetic needs of Soviet people took place. Sharapov’s notes, letters, articles in the local press are considered against the background of the archival documents and publications of his contemporaries – journalists, art critics and historians of art. This approach allows to consider the young museum associate as one of the important “backstage persons” in the artistic life of Palekh in the second half of the 1930s and the beginning of the 1940s. The main attention is paid to Sharapov’s search of the ways to overcome the crisis, in which, as he supposed, found itself the Palekh painting after 1936, and to elaborate new theoretical approach to the Palekh art combining classical views and Marxist philosophy. His articles on Pavel Bazhenov (1904—1941), whom Sharapov considered one of the main persons of the contemporary Palekh art in fact put the beginning to the complex evaluation of the works. The article is followed with brief biographic reference on the persons – contemporaries of V. Sharapov mentioned in the text.

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