Page 6 - Monograph Max

expression with such a path that ends in a joyful eu- logy because we got rid of nothingness.
The eyes of his heroes look as if they are tearful and painful because they are looking at tortured people. However, the lighting of the figure, which is in the style of Byzantine icons, and other details, contributes to making the work of art of Bishop Maximus one instructive but, at the same time, re- demptive painting. It is a redemptive icon.
Bishop Maxim conveys the world of the charac- ter of a maid not only with clothes and characteristic scarf and simple work clothes but also with eyes and mouth, as well as eyebrows. To understand a per- son’s character, it is essential to consider the eyes, eyebrows, and mouth. I don’t know how the painter managed to crystallize in his eyes the expression of a girl who works, listens, strives, and suffers in humil- ity.
This feeling is also contributed by the lips that seem to ask the question: why do I endure all this? The maid has a lay expression, but the blessed ex- pressive activity of the anatomical elements of the character. This picture is so convincing that we think that the girl seems to have just finished cleaning with rags, put her hands on her hips, and started walking towards us. From the point of view of the painting, we ask how this bishop, as an Orthodox painter, by- passes the mere stylistic expression of the painted figure and shows a broad forehead and eyes, a strong neck, which represents a girl who has matured and strengthened through work and hardship, so that she is now ready to suffer hard days. The way Bishop Maxim painted this girl serves as a halo that crowns her image.
The painting “Dostoevsky in the Night” shows
that even the Moon participates in people’s suffer- ing. What we said that everything slides towards nothingness is appropriate here. The picture also presents a meteorological theme. Here, the Moon, as the celestial sphere of a celestial body, leads us to imagine where we see the Earth as a larger sphere and the Moon as a smaller one. On that canvas, Dos- toevsky seems like someone slipping, as if he has momentarily lost the feeling of the Earth’s weight and is about to fall. But on this painting, Dostoevsky is not agitated. The gentle painter managed to show one light, otherworldly and sanctifying, on the fore- head, arches above the eyebrows, and the cheeks. It’s as if the hero found himself at a dead end, and after the sweat of that unredeemed moment, he tran- scends it and contemplates it. Those eyes seem to philosophize on why life, beauty, and joy are mixed with pain and suffering. The gentle painter with the gentleness of the heart finally sweetens that view and makes it truly unique.
In its depth, Maxim’s painting form hides the weariness of the establishment and the hand- ed-down things and the thirst for something new, fresh, and more essential than the gray everyday life. It isn’t easy to touch its depth, but for now, let’s be satisfied with its external form. All of this reminds us of the painter De Chirico and geometric shapes, like a rugby ball, angular inhospitable buildings as the remains of a civilization that betrayed us, statues in forgotten squares, and trains passing on the horizon uninterested in our presence. That spirit, although it is not dominant in the painterly pursuits of Bishop Maxim, will emphasize the specificity of his personal identity and abolish some possible similarities that connect him with some other painters, thereby over-
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