Alexander Kharitonov

Mikhail Sokolov, Alexandre Kharitonov, Paris-Moscow-New York, 1993
Norton Dodge and Alison Hilton, eds., New Art from the Soviet Union: The Known and the Unknown, Washington, D.C. and Mechanicsville, Md.: The Cremona Foundation and Acropolis Books Ltd., 1977, exhibition catalogue, p. 58
Alison Hilton, "Icons of the Inner World: The Spiritual Tradition in the New Russian Art," in Alla Rosenfeld and Norton T. Dodge, eds., From Gulag to Glasnost: Nonconformist Art from the Soviet Union, New York and London: Thames and Hudson and the Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum, 1995, pp. 260-272

Alexander Kharitonov, an artist who consistently used Christian imagery, was at once traditional and innovative - traditional in his commitment to Byzantine and Russian Orthodox imagery, innovative in his creation of a highly personal artistic language.

After World War II, he studied art at the Moscow Art School for Gifted Children. His first one-man show took place in 1958 at Moscow State University.

Until the late 1980s, art with religious subject matter was unacceptable to the Soviet authorities—as was work with controversial political commentary, social criticism, and erotic themes. In the 1960s-1980s, some nonconformist artists, in opposition to the dogmatic anti-religious stance of the Soviet government, introduced forbidden religious imagery into their art.

In Kharitonov's works, religious references range from the depiction of Russian churches, monasteries, and shrines to the representation of angels and religious subjects like the Crucifixion, the Lamentation, and other episodes from the Passion of Christ. As the artist explained: "My work rests on three pillars: Byzantine painting, Old Russian icon painting, and church embroidery in precious stones, pearls, and beads." Kharitonov was also influenced by nineteenth-century Russian landscape painting, especially the work of Alexei Savrasov.

In Young Woman and a Bird and Faith, Kharitonov uses a pointillist technique inspired by both Byzantine and Russian iconography and old Russian church embroidery, with its intricate use of beads and gemstones. Kharitonov's tiny, raised brushstrokes resemble the mosaics found in Christian churches. The tonality of liturgical embroidery imitated in his paintings is often supplemented by the radiant color scheme of Byzantine mosaics. The artist worked without any preliminary sketches.

In 1986, Kharitonov became paralyzed but continued painting his intimate-scale works deeply rooted in Russian cultural tradition and imbued with spiritual enlightenment.