Despite the pompous assurances of the capital’s media that Moscow, of course, is not all of Russia, and that the rooted, deep, and far more powerful component of the Fatherland lies beyond not only the Garden Ring but even the highway ring surrounding the metropolis, statements of this kind are by no means motivated in the same way. Some reflect a delicate irony toward the province; others are a prudent attempt to soothe its ambition; still others are irony of a completely undisguised kind; and finally, a fourth kind is dictated by a sincere conviction that such a judgment is fair. To this last group belong the advocates of the work of the artist Elena Orlova — Volgograd-based by place of residence, but in no way provincial in the essence of her creative potential, which is a phenomenon of impressive scale.
Her significance for the universe is measured not by mighty productivity or grandness of design, not by a desire to shame unworthy contemporaries with a striking example of her all-conquering perfection, but by a delicate intimacy, lyricism, and the ability, with graceful courtly virtuosity, to tame coarse reality, paralyze the pragmatism of our depoeticized time, and restrain manifestations of political unscrupulousness — as if reviving the good rules of the distant past, when, in the words of the Decembrist Yakushkin, “the free expression of thoughts was the attribute not only of every decent person, but also of everyone who wished to appear decent…” And so, in Elena Orlova’s presence, consciously or unconsciously, everyone reveals the better sides of their human nature… One is tempted to say that this is the result of charisma… But the word has been too worn out for this impeccably elegant, stylish beauty, who does not stoop to boastful glamour…
A graduate of the Lviv Polygraphic Institute, Orlova in her entire appearance embodies a certain mysterious double royalty, whose visible symbol in antiquity was a Sumerian sculptural masterpiece depicting an eagle ready for flight with the head of a lion. At the same time, the bearer of this glorious surname has nothing in common with social lionesses constantly occupied with self-advertising and the assertion of their own memorial significance. Elena Orlova is simply our Madame Récamier and Monsieur Jacques-Louis David in one person: the hostess of a salon — intellectual, refined, and democratic — which the Regional Children’s Art Gallery under her direction has long since become. In this highly original semblance of a cultural conglomerate of Plato’s Academy, Isabella d’Este’s studiolo, and the St. Petersburg Lyceum, cultural vectors from all over the world converge, affirming the unity of the humanistic aspirations of different parts of humanity.
Periodically visiting her colleagues in Lviv, Liège, Cologne, and the Western Hemisphere in order to unobtrusively correct their extensive plans, the artist does not resemble the idle mass of tourists who, by tradition, throw coins into Rome’s Trevi Fountain, the Vltava, or Niagara Falls to guarantee a return to the promised places… She simply gives her light breath to the Tower suffocated by smog and fog, or leaves a needle… in the Seine…
But the main thing that makes Orlova’s pilgrimages to her brothers and sisters in the craft so rare and priceless is her ability to admire their creations generously — which, in George Sand’s words, is a sign of true magnanimity.
Let us, then, also try to show this quality; let us forget everything printed on this page and, turning it over, ascend into the magical world created by the incredible flight of Elena Orlova’s imagination. Her art is associated in equal measure with the highest artistic aerobatics of Mikhail Vasilyevich Nesterov, author of “The Vision of the Youth Bartholomew,” and with aerobatics as such, created by pilot Pyotr Nikolayevich — the namesake of the great painter. From these transcendental heights, our fascinating search for the needle Elena Orlova left in the Seine will be an attempt to show an adequate response to her intriguing artistic bravado…
