Clouds 1945/ Geliy Korzhev/1985 AD/Paint and oil on canvas/200 x 190 cm

The painting "Clouds of 1945" by Russian artist Geliy Korzhev shows a man next to an elderly woman in dark mourning clothes. The man lost one of his legs in the war. In the background, a wide and calm meadow can be seen under a blue and cloudy sky.

A little girl on the left side of the painting is looking into the distance at a distance from the man and the woman. A girl who is from a new generation can be a sign of hope and love for the future, even though the generation before her had a dark past. All three people are looking in the same direction. This background is a narrative of extending and connecting the past to the future.

The war is over, the man has lost a leg, but life still goes on. The little girl looks into the future, the clouds move in the sky, the smell of fresh grass is everywhere. Time is historically specific in this painting: it inevitably flows forward. Life has won. The beautiful metaphor that Korzhev expressed in this work allows the past, present and future to be mixed in a complex way. This artist's attention to time shows that he has deeply understood the spirit of history.

Although Korzhev's works were not properly noticed in his time, his paintings can be a valuable key to understanding the history of post-war Russian art and placing it in the wider framework of world art of the second half of the 20th century.