Peter Belenok, b.1938

The art of Petr Belenok presents us with an exploration of cosmism.  The artist began his career as a sculptor in Kiev, but later moved to Moscow in the 1960s where he began to work as a fine artist.

Cosmism as a movement in philosophy, science and art, originated in Russia in the early twentieth century, and its main adherents included Nikolai Fedorov, Konstantin Tsiolkovsky and the geologist Vladimir Vernadsky.  Central to cosmist thought is the belief that outer space holds the key to the future progress of mankind and civilisation; Tsiolkovsky once famously proclaimed "The Earth is the cradle of humanity, but one cannot live in a cradle forever!".  The protagonists in Belenok's paintings are small photographic images of men cut out and pasted onto the picture surface.  They appear to fly in space, propelled through the universe not on rockets, but transported by gigantic strokes of paint.

For a similar work, see Flying from 1975, in the Dudakov - Kashuro Collection, Moscow illustrated in Russian Art. Private Collection, V.  Dudakov, M. Kashuro, St. Petersburg and Moscow: Zolotoi Vek and Artprior, 2006, p.147.