86. Stepping into the same river for the second time.

As we all know, "No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man" (Heraclitus). But we sometimes revisit something we have done in the past. For several months now, Victor has been re-drawing his works into a larger format. So far, most of his drawings have been made on the letter size paper (well, it's dimensions in Ukraine are slightly different from our 8" by 11.5''). Now he decided on a larger format, and he sends me the new versions of some of his old works. Of course, I see the same size e-mail attachments, but he also makes some minor changes. I thought it would be interesting to share some of them to see how an artist decides how to improve his previous works. Also, for us - observers - it will be like playing a "find 10 distinctions" game. So I am going to show old and new versions back to back: old on the left, new on the right.

In this really old drawing (I remember it since the 1980's), Victor decided to get rid of color (why?), but instead to make the beard and the foam more organized (why? maybe to stress their resemblance?). 

Flanders                                                                 A Tavern

Victor usually doesn't entitle his drawings when he creates them. He often gave them names when he sent them to me, and sometimes they were a part of our conversation. So now, I don't think the name changes are very meaningful, they just reflect his thoughts at a moment.

In the following case, as in many others, he just emphasized the lines and made a black background. Also, is it just me, of the new thinker seems a little sadder?

Let's be Wise                                                                  The  Thinker

In some cases, Victor adds some details that emphasize the meaning. I suspect that now he actually looks at his creations differently, they actually mean different things to him. The new title of the drawing is "Love," so this simply calls for some flowers, I guess.

                                                                                       


                                               
                                  Loyalty                                                                    Love

Moses is one of my most favorite Victor's works. I actually framed it and hung on a wall, so I know it pretty well. So I was surprised to see additional details. But they definitely make sense. God appeared to Moses through a burning bush. And when Moses doubted who he was talking to, his staff turned into a snake and then back into a staff.

Moses

In his first version of Pythagoras, Victor just wrote his name. I guess, he  didn't expect that everyone knew the story about the dog.And rightly so; I need to admit, I had to ask him, why dog? Victor sent me to search, which I did: according to a legend, when Pythagoras saw someone beating a dog, he stopped him: believing in the multiple lives, he heard  the voice of a friend  in the yelping of the dog. So in his second version Victor provided a more recognizable attribute of Pythagoras, the one he is the most famous for.

Pythagoras

So after all, this post fully confirms the opening quote!

85. Music and Musicians

Even though I have posted Victor's drawings about music, I was surprised to realize that I never had a whole post devoted to this rich topic. It's a timely realization, because just today he sent a drawing that I can't wait to post. He named it Tatiana - I really have no idea why. If he explains it to me, I'll add it to the post. My guess is that he knows a cello player with this name.

A long time ago he shared another drawing, this time he told me it's about his friend, a violinist, whose last name was Ganzha: 

But that was more like a cartoon or caricature, specific for this particular person. Tatiana, on the other side, is more universal, as many of Victor's drawings, it's about the unity of any musician with his/her instrument, where you can't really take them apart. This reminded me his other work, one of my favorites, "By the Wave of My Memory."

"By the Wave of My Memory."

"По Волне моей Памяти"

Victor is always afraid to seem too sentimental , so to "bring down the pathos," I'll post another type of musician.

"Serenade"

"Серенада"