Master Profile: The Art of Bato Dugarzhapov

Barry John Raybould and Bato Dugarzhapov

Barry John Raybould and Bato Dugarzhapov

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Bato Dugarzhapov is a contemporary Russian artist from Moscow, Russia. With his bold brushwork and painterly style, combined with suggestive color work that capture the feeling of a scene without unnecessary detail, he is arguably the foremost painter in the new contemporary style known as neo-impressionism. This approach to painting combines both realism and abstraction in an innovative way.

I have had the pleasure and honor of painting with him in the area around my studio in Italy, as well as in China, and his approach to developing his compositions is unlike any other painter I have ever met. What is characteristic of his method is the playfulness with which he creates his compositions. It is not a linear step-by-step approach, as you see in so many plein air how to books, but an exploratory, and unconscious, process of discovering a composition, directed by aesthetic emotions.

Landscapes by Bato Dugarzhapov

Landscape Painting, by Bato Dugarzhapov

Landscape Painting, by Bato Dugarzhapov

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Townscapes by Bato Dugarzhapov

Seascapes by Bato Dugarzhapov

Seascape, by Bato Dugarzhapov

Seascape, by Bato Dugarzhapov

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Post Impressionist Paintings by Bato Dugarzhapov

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Bato-Dugarzhapov-Post-Impressionist-1

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Painting demonstrations by Bato Dugarzhapov

Here are some rare videos of Bato Dugarzhapov painting plein air. His approach to painting is very different from the typical plein air painting approach, that most plein air painters teach. It involves far more play, and less of a step-by-step process. This results in a much higher level of creativity in design. I cover some of these ideas in my Master Class lectures in the Virtual Art Academy® Graduate Program.

The video below was taken in 2019. Barry, and his student Meng Qing Sheng were painting with Bato Dugarzhapov in the San He mountains east of Beijing, in Hebei county.

Bato Dugarzhapov’s thoughts on painting

Here is a book created by Bato Dugarzhapov that summarizes some of his key thoughts on painting. Click the square button bottom right.

Bato Dugarzhapov is one of the master painters of our time. I have been fortunate enough to spend time with him, painting and learning about his thoughts on what it takes to produce truly creative and masterful work.

It turns we are very much aligned in our thinking, and in particular on the Visual Music & Poetry^® concept – a philosophy of painting that gradually emerged when researching information on painting for the Virtual Art Academy online painting classes.

One of the core ideas behind the Visual Music & Poetry^® idea is that creating a master painting is not at all about making a faithful reproduction of what you see. Rather it is all about creating a beautiful visual experience, that is based on some fundamental truths of nature. It is the latter that makes the painting more powerful, since it relates to us on a human level.

This means that when you paint you have to do two things:

#1 Have Fun And Relax
When you are painting you need to use the scene you are painting as just a starting point. Then play with your colors until you come up with something beautiful on the canvas. Do not think too much. It help to paint quickly. React to things in the scene that interest you and get their essence down quickly. Play with the paint on your canvas until something beautiful happens, even if its not completely true to the actual scene. In fact it won’t be. This is the Visual Music of the painting.
#2 Respect The Visual Truths Of Nature
There are key things you have to know about the visual characteristics you find in nature. Things such as how colors change depending on how far away from you they are. And what are the color variations you see in every sky, no matter where you are in the world. These are the fundamental truths of nature. You have learn these things so that you can apply them while you are playing on the canvas. If you violate these truths, your painting will lose its Visual Poetry

The book includes some of the paintings he created in China with me and one of my students. That’s me on the right in his book. (Bato was painting behind us).

Barry (right) and his student Meng (left)

Barry and Bato Dugarzhapov painting in China — Barry John Raybould (in back) and Bato Dugarzhapov (front left) painting in China

Book of Paintings by Bato Dugarzhapov

Here is a book of paintings by Bato.

Biography

Bato Dugarzhapov (1966 – ) was born in Duldurga in the Chita Region of Siberia. He studied at Moscow Art School and graduated from Surikov’s Moscow Art Institute. He is a member of the Moscow Union of Artists, and the Monumental painting studio of E. N. Maksimov. He lives and works in Moscow.

He was involved in the painting of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, the Iver Monastery in Valdai, the New Jerusalem Monastery, the Sea St. Nicholas Cathedral in Kronstadt. He was awarded the medal of the Russian Orthodox Church of St. Sergius of Radonezh Second class, a certificate from the Patriarch of Moscow and all Russia Alexy.

Dugarzhapov has had more than 20 solo exhibitions and participated in seven large projects. His works are in the Chita Regional museum, as well as many private collections in Russia, France, Great Britain, Italy, the Netherlands, USA, Japan, Yugoslavia, Denmark and China.

The Grand Prix of the “Renaissance XXI” Charity organization (1995)
A member of the International Arts Foundation (1997)
A member of the Russian union of artists (1998)
A Grant of the “Cité d’Art” (1999)
A member of the Moscow union of artists, Monumental division (2003)

A key strength in Dugarzhapov’s work is his excellent combination of both far music and near music. The compositions are always very strong, with an interesting arrangement of shapes, and beautiful color harmonies. He uses many types of contrast: contrast of detail, contrast of temperature, and contrast of thick and thin. The paintings are usually painted in middle values with a few dark accents, and sometimes in a high key to emphasize the feeling of strong sunlight.

He uses a very interesting optical color mixing brushwork technique using multi-colored brushstrokes sometimes in combination with a wet-in-wet adjacent brushstrokes technique. It is tempting to see his technique as being the main reason for the painting’s beauty, but in fact the beauty arises to a large extent from his strong foundation in color observation and in his drawing skills, where he skillfully uses suggestion. He is very accurate with hue changes on a form, made much more difficult because of using optical color mixing at the same time. Without this foundation the brushwork technique would not have the desired results.

He is one of the very few painters who can take a representational painting to the verge of abstraction and still make it feel real. Another painter who was able to achieve this was Feodor Zhakarov, but with not with quite the same degree of color harmony. Read more on Russian Impressionism.

Thank You

Thank you for taking the time to read this article. I hope you find it useful. If you would like to get free painting tips by email, please sign up for my free tips newsletter.

If you are interested in a structured approach for learning how to paint, take a look at my online painting classes.

Happy painting!

Barry John Raybould
Virtual Art Academy

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