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The Storybook Houses of Victor Nizovtsev
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Look around. All that you see was first seen in the artist’s mind, of the great Artist of Creation and of all the artists He created. Notice the sun and moon, your table and chair, the silver or stainless, the glass or mug, the picture or lamp, the drapery, and outside your window the houses of street or of the farm-next-over. All that you see is a work-of-art, a fancy, an idea from the artist’s mind made real.
There is a tradition in things alike the guided evolution of Nature, choices determined by what is most fit, most serviceable, most beautiful and good. This is the way of Tradition: that which is ugly is discarded, neglected, forgotten to fall into earth and be dissolved. The beautiful lives on; loved, it is cherished, preserved to grow generation-to-generation into new, more beautiful, more serviceable things.
Master Procrastinator, Victor Nizovtsev. credit: V. Nizovtsev
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Breakfast with Grandma, Victor Nizovtsev. credit: V. Nizovtsev
Before the house of nails and plumbing there is the artist’s vision, a house seen from all things seen before, each vision an evolution unique in sameness, a spoon to the family of Spoon, a house to the family of House. And in the family of House, the nomen, “Storybook”, the house of first fantasy, borne of fairytale, fable and legend.
Some storybook houses are typical, patented, some are original, universal, as are the Storybook Houses of Victor Nizovtsev, a new American Artist who brought from old Russia the stories and fantasies of mermaids, angels, jesters, princes, and the characters of Thumbelina, the Princess and the Pea, et alia.
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“untitled”, Victor Nizovtsev. credit: V. Nizovtsev
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Waiting for Inspiration, Victor Nizovtsev. credit: V. Nizovtsev
On this page are pictured the storybook houses found in new tales of Nizovtsev’s invention, stories told not in word but in line, form, color, stories that might someday generate narratives beautiful and good. Do you see into the pictures. Expect you do. You know the story before your eyes, though the story has never before been told, it is a new thing seen mind-to-mind. The artist knows what you know, and you know what the artist knows, and this is storybook magic.
Yes, of course, Victor Nizovtsev’s storybook houses are a species of Tudor tinctured with German forest, deepened in the dark way of Grimm, brightened by way of rich, Orthodox Russian eggs, precious things imperial in quaint, common excellence. By right geometry, a Nizovtsev house could be easily made, drawn in plan by this architect or that, sawn, hammered, and nailed, brushed with color of the artist’s choosing, decorated with happy tree, bush, flower and flutterby.
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Perhaps you are familiar with Winston Churchill’s telling line, “We shape our buildings, and afterwards our buildings shape us.” So it is with all things from the artist’s mind, mugs to movies (both now in need of reimagining). Imagine, if you will, a world shaped beautiful and good by the storybook houses of Victor Nizovtsev.
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“untitled”, Victor Nizovtsev. credit: V. Nizovtsev
Born in 1965 in the former Soviet Union, Victor began studying art at a young age. He continued his art studies at the prestigious Vera Muhina University for the Arts in St. Petersburg, Russia. In 1997, Victor moved to the United States and currently resides in the Washington, DC area. To learn more of Victor Nizovtsev you might visit his Facebook page and his website. To learn more of Storybook Houses, please visit The Beautiful Home.
Featured image: When Pigs Fly, Victor Nizovtsev, artist.
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