Dmitry Dmitrievich Zhilinsky (Дмитрий Дмитриевич Жилинский; born Volnovka, Krasnodar region, 25 May 1927) is a Soviet and Russian painter, a People’s Artist of the RSFSR, a recipient of the RSFSR State Prize and the State Prize of the Russian Federation. He trained in Moscow at the Institute of Applied and Decorative Art (1944–6) and the Surikov Art Institute (1946–51) under Pavel Korin and others, while Vladimir Favorsky was particularly influential in shaping his talent. He can rightly be considered one of the central figures of contemporary Soviet art. His contents and his language do not fit into any defined current. Rather, his work is at the origin of an independent current and language, characterized by a clear compositional structure. He expresses a vibrant artistic individuality, an intellectualism in the best sense of the word, a serious and in-depth self-analysis and, ultimately, a deep and intimate need for constant active communication with the public. Zhilinsky has been painting since the mid-’50s, forming alongside such masters as Salah Tahir, Nikolai Andronov, Viktor Ivanov, Elio Korzhev, etc, the generation of the so-called Severe (or Austere) Style, a movement in Russian art in the 1960s that sought to endow images with a new integrity and strict verism, thereby overcoming the decrepit standards of Socialist Realism.
The word “severe” is hardly associated, however, to the finesse, delicacy, refinement of the artist’s paintings. Only a few early works may be included in this trend. In the second half of the 60s the work of Zhilinsky evolves towards a general monumentality and a more intimate psychological depth, and he has always been distinguished by the refined aestheticism of his paintings. Working in tempera on levkas (the gesso-like priming typical of Russian medieval painting), he drew stylistically on the heritage of the Italian Quattrocento and the German Renaissance. Touches of a sort of Art Nouveau revival are also manifested in his precise, rhythmical use of line and in the exquisite details of his works. One of the most talented Russian portrait painters, he often turned his portraits into extended metaphors of human life or into a ‘focus of beauty’, full of historical detail and stylization. His painting 1937, depicting the arrest of his father during Stalin’s Great Terror, became one of the popular artistic symbols of the era of glasnost’.
“Since the years the academy he has affected his classmates and teachers for its activity, his thirst for work, the desire to bring his work to completion, dedicating himself to what he did. … His love for the craft and a real passion for art and the artist’s work are the most noticeable exterior feature of the work of Zhilinsky. This work has been a huge and relentless joyful burden, the focus of his life from a young age. … Maybe at the base of such a diligent art are the soil that requires care and work from morning to evening, the strong attachment of the companion artist to workers from his native village he knew since his childhood and who had to come to light rightfully taking place in his paintings – the heavy manual labor, peasant festivals and the patient calm. Zhilinsky … in my opinion, has a special talent for portraits. He creates “portraits” of flowers, trees, houses, not only of human beings. He looks around and finds the special features, the most recognizable and unique, showing the essence of these plants, these objects, these people, their unique personality; and it is always beauty. “ (Anatoly Nikic)
