Lot 315: MAXIM KANTOR

MAXIM KANTOR B.1957 LEV TOLSTOY signed in Cyrillic l.l.; further signed and titled in Latin and Cyrillic and dated 2007 on reverse oil on canvas 220 by 200cm., 86 1/2 by 79 in.

Notre Dame, IN, Snite Museum of Art, Maxim Kantor, 18 October - 23 November 2008
Oxford, St Antony's College, Maxim Kantor: Russia Intelligentsia - Motor and Victim of Social Changes, 26 April - 10 May 2010
Brussels, Domenican Cathedral, Maxim Kantor – Revelatio Johannis Apostili, 23 May – 8 June 2010

V. Hosle, Maxim Kantor: One is Enough, Moscow: Asterel, 2010, p.192, illustrated

The offered lot depicts the writer Lev Tolstoy in old age. Carrying a bundle of his worldly possessions he has left his home to live as a spiritual ascetic at the age of 82. This existence that he had long dreamt of pursuing was cut short as he quickly caught pneumonia and died not long after. The work raises questions about the longing for solitude. Did the writer know he was dying and this was a lasting message he wished to leave the world, a kind of symbol of his mortality, or was it a step full of some kind of hope of a spiritual release?

Kantor also explores the identity of the artist, be that a writer or a painter. On the most obvious level Lev Tolstoy is a reflection of the artist's own growing occupation as writer. But in a less obvious interpretation, he is addressing directly what it means to be an artist. For Kantor the artist is not an entertainer, to be symbolized in the acrobats and clowns of French post-impressionist art. The artist has a certain responsibility: to express the sufferings of humanity in our contemporary world in ways that can engage us and promote positive change and reflection.