Man and Cloud

The tendency towards the representation of what cannot be represented realistically, such as, for example, a dream, a vision or a wish, was the theme for a series of works by several artists of Russian Avant-garde, that expressed human turmoil while confronting the Universe. A celestial challenge of this kind is depicted in Solomon Nikritin's painting entitled “Man and Cloud” (1930), in which the cloud hovers like a lifeline above a tiny figure standing alone on an islet in the middle of nowhere. Amongst the gray, empty and lifeless environment, the colored cloud, in which small stories are revealed, expresses everything that could be a pleasant memory of life and, moreover, every visionary expectation for the upcoming world.