Painter Vladimir Fomin

About Vladimir Fomin's "Tales of the North"

"Fantasy is more important than knowledge"
Albert Einstein

The paintings from the series entitled "Tales of the North" take the viewer to an extraordinary land of the artist's imagination.
The material which inspired the marvelous compositions and imagery of the series was provided by a remarkable journey on the Norwegian Sea and through the fjords, by trips to the mountains and visits to museums. There, Fomin learned about history and culture of the country, became familiar with the legends of the Vikings, told by their descendants, and heard the "living folklore" from the lips of the local inhabitants.
Like Erik Werenskjold and Theodor Kittelsen - creators of the first illustrations to the tales of the great Norwegian folklorists Peter Asbjornsen and Jorgen Moe - Fomin, in his search for artistic impressions, drew inspiration from the beauty of primordial nature of Norway and from the unique customs, traditions, and beliefs of its people. These impressions gave birth to such "musical" works (so-called by virtue of their compositions and colors) as "Northern Lights," "Evening," "Easter Holiday," and "Christmas in Harstad."
Similar deeply personal impressions from travels across the country and from his familiarity with works of folklore, literature, and music became the foundations of "Captured by White Dreams," "Sparkling Northern Town," "Evening Kiss," "Norwegian Song," and " Steamship at Night." Like the entire series, they are painted in colors corresponding to the Norwegian flora. At the same time, they express the artist's independence from strict adherence to any original, especially since the "miraculous" topics of the series inherently contain differences in their presentation.
The paintings "The Three-headed Troll," "A Troll and an Owl," "An Owl," "The Pagan Fire of Blue Rocks," "A White Rose," "On the Edge of the Earth," and " A Northern Town" best illustrate the Norwegian writer Bjornstjerne Bjornson's idea that trolls are a part of the Norwegian natural world.
It is a world of miraculous beings, extensions of the forests, lakes, marshes, cliffs, and fjords. At night, the "Three-headed Troll" dances. Usually he is extremely wicked and unbelievably stupid, but under the cover of darkness, which hides his ugliness, he becomes goodhearted and gullible. He is happy and satisfied. The waves of his laughter rock the mountain peaks and valleys, and the echo carries the waves far across the mountains. The first rays of the morning are deadly for a troll because they can make him disintegrate and turn into stone. That's why the troll's dance will end before the sunrise and he will hide in the mountains.
Another mystery about this bad-tempered creature is revealed in the story named "A Troll and an Owl." The mystifying change of night into day - aurora borealis - brings all things in the mountains to life. A hill covered with moss turns out to be a troll's head. His huge four-fingered paws and the long hooked nose begin to move. The full moon lights up the bird which protects the kingdom of Jotunheimen. It is a place where the snow does not melt even in the summer and where the northern deer come to eat moss which grows in the ears and noses of the trolls ("The Pagan Fire of Blue Rocks"). The skin of the inhabitants of the fairy land has the same color as the rocks. Their bodies are covered with trees and bushes. Their heads usually resemble mountain slopes. But the top of a snowy peak, wrapped in a sheet of white night, may even become, in Fomin's imagination, "A White Rose."
After all, the fairy creatures have the ability to turn into whatever or whomever they want. Perhaps the owl is none other than the mightiest troll Dovregubben.
"A Boy on a Deer" hovers above the silent beauty of the land. The journey of the folkloric hero Peer Gynt, the protagonist of Henrik Ibsen's drama, is a flight of fantasy, something beyond the boundaries of possibility. The colors of the polar night and of the cosmic abyss - dark blue and black - should express, according to the author, an idea of reaching the unreachable.
The image of Peer Gynt, the conqueror of trolls, has a certain affinity with the image of "A Boy on the Rocks." This is how the artist depicted the child who lives in every adult. He placed him between heaven and earth, between the moon, the stars and the rocks, in the kingdom of fantasy. Thanks to the kingdom's Queen, in some pictures unreal space and unnatural forms appear quite believable. This happened to the greatest teller of tales, Henri Rousseau, whose touching picture, "A Child on the Rocks," Fomin recreated and interpreted in his own style and in his own way. As long as people have tales, they remain children. Man is a big child that lives in the world of his own tales, even if he does not realize it. For that reason "A Boy on the Rocks" is first of all an embodiment of a dream about reaching far beyond the clouds, about ascending the most fantastic summits. It is a triumph of belief in the extraordinary world created by the fantasy of the people.
Without dreams man can only turn into a tiny red dot ("On the Edge of the Earth"). The picture captures the extraordinary landscape of one of the northernmost corners of Norway and the world - a plateau by the cape Nordkapp. On the background of the bottomless abyss, in the endless space of the watery element under the midnight sun, we see the familiar outlines of a rock. It resembles a troll who stopped to rest during his journey across the sea. Describing this universal world, the artist left the viewer a choice: either a man is just a drop in the ocean of life or the entire world sits on the top of a mountain.
Elements of northern nature are also reflected in the mostly mythical work entitled "A Northern Town." The town, which is the home of the people, is represented as a troll's head. The surreal image can be divided into individual cohesive fragments. The head is a house, the eyes - windows, the roof - a frozen mountain. "A Northern Town" appears to be a vision in a dream, and the keys to the dream's interpretation are numerous symbols in the painting. The nose of the troll resembles a Scandinavian church. An upside-down deer is a symbol of pagan beliefs. The masonic sign of a fish and the tail of a comet announcing the birth of Jesus foretell the conversion of the land of the pagan Vikings to a new faith. A car is a reverberation of the contemporary world. A snowflake may represent coded information about man's life in the universe. Around the troll's head is a halo of northern lights. Magnetic storms are frequent in the north. They imply the breathing of the blue planet populated by real and imaginary creatures.
The fairy-tale-like conception of the world cannot exist without romantic feelings, without emotions of happiness, rapture, sentimentality, irony, and humor. These emotions offer enjoyment and with their help the doors to the fairy tale open widely. Not by chance did the author send the heroes of the "Christmas Boat" on a fairy quest. In the painting entitled "Scandinavia," legendary characters also conquer unknown places, traveling in a fantastic boat of time. Viewers immersed in the world of fairy tales can travel around Fomin's pictures, each time discovering new worlds of their own imagination.
Creating the series "Tales of the North," the artist did not forget about colorful mermaids ("A Mermaid," "A Mermaid and a Fish," "A Mermaid and Mountains"). On his canvasses, the images of mermaids are no less changeable than the images of trolls. It is not surprising that the painter brought them together in "A Mermaid and Three Trolls."
Two supernatural charcters -- "The Water Nokken," who lives in the bottomless lake, and "The Fiddler Fossegrimen," to whose music the waterfall dances -- occupy a special place in the series. But the "Household Spirit" is also present. Born from the brightly lit stove during one of the Christmas season nights, he is depicted in "fiery" colors.
In "A Hare's Dream," "A Church and a Hare," "A Boar By the Tree," "A Deer," and "A Whale," Fomin presents Christmas and Easter stories about pranks and jests of dangerous creatures, who are simultaneously able to be delightful and charming. But not only trolls have the ability to turn into animals. People exhibit many of the characteristics which they ascribe exclusively to fairytale characters. Otherwise, why would they need holidays and carnivals?
"The Church in Trondenes" illustrates a legend about trolls who built the old church near Harstad. Greedy trolls asked an enormous price for building the church. Fortunately, all trolls love to joke and play up. Therefore, they promised to build the church for free, but only on the condition that their secret names would be guessed. A priest learned their names from a lullaby which a mother sang to her child. The condition of the trolls was met. In the painting, the beautiful church occupies almost the entire space of the painting and only the trolls dejectedly look at the fruit of their labor. They have outwitted themselves. The artist's brush combined two realities: the reality of life - a beautiful piece of land where the church stands - and the reality of fantasy - the gift of the trolls.
The paintings "The Easter Deer" and "Easter" can be considered Fomin's interpretation of ancient traditions. The head of the deer, a symbol of paganism, is transformed into a vase with an Easter bouquet. The sun in a dark blue sky brings the news about the resurrection of nature. Reflections of the life-giving light and the divine color of the sun are seen in the yellow roses. The flowers grow from the deer's horns, resembling the branches of a willow tree. Multistoried mountains are decorated like Easter eggs. They fashion an improvised cradle for one more character from Scandinavian tales. In the cradle we see someone resembling Haugtuss, Tomte, Tomtekalle or Nisse. These sprites only deal with good people and they get terribly offended in case of problems. It appears that something similar had happened to one of them. Perhaps he is dreaming about the brightest and most magical Easter, a day when people and their fairy-tale prototypes whirl in a merry circle of yellow roses, wishing each other all the best and fulfilling each other's wishes.
A gentle kinship with the soul and character of the people, reflected in folklore, found its way into those works of Vladimir Fomin, which he based on the tales of Peter Asbjornsen.
The popular dream of paradise ("The Ravens of Utrost") in the retelling of Asbjornsen reminds us that fairy tales teach not only how to dream, but also how to live. It often appears that man's life passes by "wonder islands." It often appears that somewhere sun shines more brightly than everywhere else, that the meadows are greener and the fields more fruitful… Somewhere out there is happiness, deliverance from all possible misfortunes. According to the legend, there are three such islands in the sea. The mysterious islands are revealed at the most critical moment only to that individual who has a pure heart and a brave soul. Following Asbjornsen, Fomin has sent his fisherman to one of these islands.
Four works based on the motifs from the tale "The Ravens of Utrost" repeat the image of the main hero - Matthias. He spent all his life on the sea. Many times the sea abyss was ready to swallow him, but he fought and survived. But one time he got into such a storm that he was prepared to die. At the exact moment when he said farewell to his life, he heard cawing of birds and saw three ravens.
The meeting of the fisherman with otherworldly powers constitutes the main compositional center of "The Ravens of Utrost," "The Sons of the Sea," and "The Song of the Sea Spirit." They show how Matthias begins his relationship with the creatures possessing magical powers. The changelings-ravens are always carried by friendly winds, the fish in the sea are waiting for their magical nets, and on the island of Utrost they have a table, on which food never diminishes. Everything that happens to them is wonderful and stands in direct contrast to the terrifying, difficult, and unhappy life of a simple mortal fisherman.
According to the law of the fairy tale, in which strict borders exist between good and evil, the magical power of the ravens of Utrost is transferred to Matthias. From the moment of his visit to "The Magic Island," he is always successful and the misfortune bypasses his home and his boat. Matthias experiences something which never happens in real life. His continuous good fortune resembles life in the paradise to which he was taken by his invisible friends, his generous hosts.
The footprints of the raven, which lead to the island on the surface of the sea, represent the same kind of fantasy as the road to the magic castle in Asbjornsen's tale "East of the Sun, West of the Moon." Nobody can find the castle after it is visited by the fiance of the white bear. She has to overcome incredible misfortunes to find her love again.
The paintings "Farewell" and "The Girl on the White Bear" commemorate the key moments of the tale. At a specified time, the enchanted prince - white bear - comes to ask for the girl's hand in marriage. He takes her to his palace where everything is made of gold and silver. He also surrounds her family with unbelievable luxury. But who can predict so soon after marriage what the future will bring? Fairy tales are edifying and valuable because their heroes have to pay for everything. The departure from the old life does not last long. Having broken her oath, the bride punishes not only herself with poverty and loneliness, but also condemns her beloved to unhappiness. The price of betrayal in the tale is as high as only a fairy tale can make it. After all, happiness is easier to find than to keep, and almost impossible to get back again. To discover the place east of the sun and west of the moon the power of love alone is not enough. The magic of the three witches and four winds ("A Girl on a Horse") comes to the rescue.
Another painting, "The Son of a Water Spirit," can be considered a song of a different love - it describes the union of the Sea King and a mortal woman. The artist created fantastic portraits that precisely render the idea of true self-sacrifice found in the lofty, tragic tale written by Regine Normann.
In Fomin's painting, birds hover above the sea and carry away the father and his son. For their sake the woman changes into a bird, goes to the underworld kingdom, and gives up the earthly pleasures, the happiness of meeting the sun every day and walking with it along the seashore.
Compositional devices, effective combination of invented imagery, and the use of expressive colors make the allegory of the tale "The Billy Goat Mighty Horns" appear accessible and enticing. The painting seems to be filled with air and leaves an impression of the illusive, fantastic nature of the represented material and at the same time the creative spiritual enrichment of real thoughts and emotions.
"The Magic Kingdom of Pink Clouds" forms the background for the rendering of the story of the son who tries to find a cure for his dying father. The main action takes place here. Riding through the sky on a goat, the prince approaches the unreachable tower and captures the princess in view of astonished public and the king. What happens next takes place beyond the frame of the painting. But following the fairy tale logic, the prince will marry the princess, the sick king will recover, and the king's daughter, enchanted by an evil giant, will also be fine, like all the good characters in every fairy tale.
Folk wisdom says that good should triumph and evil should be punished. This theme can be found in Fomin's "How Two Boys Met Trolls in Heddal Woods" and in "King's Hares," based on Asbjornsen tales with the same titles. The first picture shows the climactic moment during the meeting of two brothers with the three trolls. Next to the terrible villains taller than the pines, the boys seem to be completely helpless. They are no larger than each adversary's palm. However, bravery conquers fear in their souls and cunning and deftness not only protect them from evil spells, but also lead to wealth. In exchange for the only eye they have taken away from the trolls, they receive treasure and bring it successfully home.
An even more interesting story is told in the painting "King's Hares." In the center of the composition we see Espen the shepherd playing the pipe for the king's hares. The pipe is a gift of the old troll woman, a reward for Espen's kind words, for sharing his food, and for releasing her nose pinched by a crack in a tree stump. The most magical of all the magic pipes in the world always returns to its owner and saves his life. Thanks to this miraculous object, the pauper marries the princess and inherits half of the kingdom. The tale is full of fabrications, but contains a hint of truth. A small price can buy a lot. Again goodness and sound reasoning defeat greed, stupidity, and cruelty. The king and the queen, after attempting unsuccessfully to steal from Espen something that does not belong to them, are left among their hares -- the victims of their own wrongdoing.
In the painting devoted to this tale, as in many others, the artist did not try to call attention to the tale's moral sense or to its didactic nature. He affirmed his right to believe that creating the series of paintings based on fairy tales gives him an opportunity to participate in an exciting game with many pleasant surprises.
A good dose of irony and humor is injected into the painting based on the tale by Alf Proysen, "The Hat of Peter Ulson." Fomin was able to put the entire interesting plot in one composition. All the main heroes are included. The children are afraid of Peter Ulson even though he is scared of everything. He runs after his hat, carried away by the wind, and he does not even suspect that without his hat he no longer looks angry, but nice. And the wretched hat at first floats like a small boat down the stream and later becomes a cozy and warm home for forest mice. Only in fairy tales can the bad transform into good. Creating this work, the artist reminded us that in tales with a happy ending everything bad is short-lived. Working on the series "Tales of the North" Fomin turned to the artistic genre that simply tells about deepest human wishes and desires. The foundations of fairy tales are the dreams of the poor about becoming rich, of the weak about gaining strength, of those who constantly fail about being successful, and of the unhappy about finding happiness. In his search for visual magic, Vladimir Fomin did not create book illustrations, but rather individual paintings, existing on their own. These are original, optimistic works, professionally executed and simply beautiful. True paintings have this characteristic - they astonish, not because they reflect in a wonderful way the tale's nature, but because they are beautiful. It is as difficult to explain as the existence in the world of miracles or magic. But an artist is a magician. He can make the world more beautiful by adding to it bright, optimistic colors and dynamic, concise, enchanting images. He can also add something else, known only to magicians and wizards.

Svetlana Gromova
Translated by Alexander Boguslawski



	Vladimir Fomin: fomin@onego.ru