Georgy Grigorievich Nissky is a brilliant landscape painter of the Soviet era. The works of Georgy Nissky associated with the railway theme, the image of the sea element. In the paintings of the master, nature appears not only in its original form, it is permeated with the beauty of human labor.

Biography of Georgy Grigorievich Nissky

Georgy Nissky was born on January 21, 1903 in the family of a doctor near Gomel at the Novobelitsa station. From childhood, the boy admired the machinists, inhaled the smell of hot metal, coal smoke. He thought about the career of an artist in adolescence: a local student-painter appreciated George’s gymnasium drawings, introduced him to the masterpieces of great masters and advised him to do fine arts.

Georgy Nissky in 1919 began to study painting at the Gomel art studio. There they noticed his talent and sent him in 1921 to the Moscow VKHUTEMAS. In the capital, the young man simultaneously worked as an illustrator in a printing house and was actively involved in sports.

In 1926, the future master became close to Alexander Deineka, who introduced him to the circle of artists of the OST group. She influenced the formation of the painter’s style, the characteristic features of which were clarity, dynamics, subtle lyricism, and the objects of his works are modern realities. In 1928, Georgy Nissky went to Novorossiysk to prepare material for his thesis. He was captivated by the majesty and romance of the sea. This image has entered the artist’s work forever.

After graduating

After graduating from VKHUTEMAS in 1930, Georgy Nissky was engaged in the design of wall newspapers, created monumental panels, produced posters. In the company of Deineka and other artists, in 1936 he visited the cities of the Crimea, where he went on military ships, flew in airplanes. The following year, a trip took place already to the Pacific Ocean, in 1940 – to the Baltic. The master also visited the Barents Sea many times. These travels resulted in new landscapes.

During the Great Patriotic War, the painter lived in Moscow, created propaganda posters and paintings. In them, he expressed faith in the upcoming victory, thereby strengthening the people’s patriotism.

In subsequent years, the master worked a lot, creating his best works – full of light, air, energy. Together with Deineka, they laid the foundations of the austere style in Soviet painting. This style belongs to socialist realism, is distinguished by the same accuracy of the image, conformity to the state ideology, the absence of metaphors and abstractions. Its key principles were industrialization, the glorification of hard physical labor, a naturalistic depiction of rural paintings without a touch of romance.

In 1951, Georgy Nyssa was awarded the State Prize for his work. In 1953 he traveled along the Volga, in connection with which he wrote a cycle of lyrical landscapes. Georgy Grigorievich also illustrated books on marine topics. The last years of his life, the artist was seriously ill and practically did not work. Georgy Nyssa died in a nursing home on June 18, 1987.

The most famous paintings by Georgy Grigorievich Nissky

The paintings of George of Nyssa enjoyed success throughout the life of the master. Today they are kept in many museums of the former USSR. Among the outstanding works are the following:

1. “Fall. Semaphores “(1932) – an industrial landscape in which a person is invisibly present. The locomotive, semaphores, telegraph lines look animated, the artist managed to find lyrical notes in them.
2. “Meeting” (1935) – the painting brought the author a bronze medal at the exhibition in Paris in 1937. Nyssa, who was not too fond of genre scenes, could not finish the work for a long time. He was helped by a trip to the Crimea, where the master painted a lot from life on the seashore.
3. “Rainbow” (1950) – the landscape is built on the original combination of two semicircles of an openwork bridge and a rainbow spread over it. In the work, from which breathes freshness and vigor, the creations of nature and man are equally poeticized.
4. “Winter near Moscow” (1957) – the composition of the picture in the form of a triangle, the top of which is directed upward, emphasizes the impulse of the soul to escape from the metropolis towards the beauty of nature. Nyssa managed to capture the border space that separates the bustling city from the peaceful village.
5. “Kolkhoz“ Zagorie ”(1960) – within the limits of one work, the artist showed the details of collective farm life. Here again there is a motive of movement in the form of a road dividing the image vertically.