The suggestive colouring and magical rhythms ofthe ajour lines fill his early painting Sorrow (Giotto)with a mood of mysticism, combining with the musicalplastics and colour combinations to form asublime image. Vasily Denisov’s paintings wereshown at Der Blaue Reiter exhibitions organisedby Kandinsky in 1911 as well as theIzdebsky Salons.A professional musician with a passion forcolour-sound associations, Denisov attracted the interestof his contemporaries, including Kandinsky,with his shimmering painted canvases imbued withthe resonance of the artist’s inner mood and emotionalcondition.

Denisov Vasily

Denisov, Vasily Ivanovich
1862, Zamostje, Poland — 1920, Moscow
Painter, graphic artist, theatrical designer, monumentalist. Studied at the Warsaw Institute of Music (until 1880). Served as a musician in the Lithuanian Regiment. Worked for the Salamonsky Circus and for orchestras of private theatres in Moscow. Took up painting (1895). Took lessons from Konstantin Korovin (1897–1898). Studied under Valentin Serov at the Elizaveta Zvantseva School of Art in Moscow (1898–1900). Contributed to the exhibitions of the World of Art and Russian Art in Paris (1906). Travelled to Greece with Sergei Konyonkov and I. F. Rakhmanov (1912). Designed productions at the Solodovnikov Theatre, the Vera Komissarzhevskaya Theatre, the Konstantin Stanislavsky Theatre, the Musical Drama Theatre and at the Moscow People’s House. Created church frescos in Ivanovo-Voznesensk from designs by Fyodor Schechtel (late 1890s).