Valentina P. Cvetkova

Still Life with Sakura

Still Life with Sakura. Canvas, oil. 70 x 50 cm.

Valentina Petrovna Cvetkova (1917-2007) was a People's Artist of Ukraine and one of the leading exponents of Crimean Impressionism. Born in Astrakhan, she studied at the Astrakhan Art School. She first visited Crimea in 1936, was deeply captivated by it, and settled permanently in Yalta soon afterwards. She worked in her celebrated studio on Tea Hill, where she combined floral still lifes with panoramic views of the sea and Mount Ai-Petri. Her works are held in the Tret'jakov Gallery, the Russian Museum, and important international private collections. In 2002 a minor planet was named in her honour. In 2007 she donated 75 of her paintings to the city of Yalta and died there later that year.

Still Life with Sakura was painted from the balcony of the artist's studio on Tea Hill, which commands a magnificent panoramic view of Mount Ai-Petri and the Black Sea. In the foreground, a delicate branch of sakura stands out, light and almost impalpable, arranged in a simple vase and suffused with light. It seems to dissolve into the air, merging with the blue of the mountains and sea in the background.

This way of combining a still life with an open landscape was the defining feature of Cvetkova's painting. The artist did not merely depict Crimea, but conveyed her own personal sense of happiness and spring. As she herself stated, her principal aim was 'to convey the light, illumination, and air that give life to all living things.' In this work, the branch of sakura is not merely a flower but becomes a symbol of beauty that is fleeting yet inexhaustibly generous, which the artist was able to preserve forever on canvas.