Lev Bruni
(1894-1948)

L. Bruni came from a family with a long artistic tradition: his great-grandfather was a renowned watercolorist last century P. F. Sokolov , among his relatives was a famous painter of the academics F. Bruni , a relationship he had with his family and Briullov. "In my veins not blood, but watercolor", - joked the artist. And in fact, he was a born watercolorist, virtuoso all the secrets of this exquisite and difficult art.

 Bruni studied in St. Petersburg - a private school princess Tenisheva, at the Higher Art School of the Arts (1910 - 11) - the famous battle painters F. Roubaud and N. Samokish , and in 1911 - in the studio JF Tsionglinskogo, then in Paris, at the Academy Julian R. and J.-P. Laurence (1912). He started with painting. The painting "Rainbow" (1915) was created under the influence of ancient icons and at the same time one of the newest trends of European art - cubism. Sturdy, simple volumes, strictly balanced composition, the strong contrasts of deep, rich colors - red and green, blue and yellow - all said the desire of the artist is not so much to convey a lively nature (young peasant in the field), but to find a generic image of serene grandeur and power . But in the same and subsequent years Bruni tirelessly draws easy, precise pencil people close to him in casual poses, depicts dancers rehearsing (series "Ballet", 1925), writes delicate, transparent watercolor nature, artistically conveying its agility, the thrill of the branches and leaves on the wind. Brush it often does this on paper fast vibrating strokes, which clearly shows the exact and the free movement of the hand of the artist. Such works are best suited to impulsive nature Bruni, and determined, for all their apparent modesty, its further development.

 In 1923 he moved to Moscow. Here, he teaches at the Art Institute, has been illustrating magazines. Its light, quivering drawings adorned the book "Don Quixote" of Cervantes (1924), "Confessions of a Child of the Century" by A. de Musset (1932), "Shahnameh" Ferdowsi (1934), "Lyrics" Nizami (1947), and other special place in the work Bruni is a monumental art.

 From 1935 to the end of life, the artist led studio of monumental painting, created with his participation at the Academy of Architecture of the USSR. In the most successful of his own monumental works of the artist was able to save by moving into a huge scale, fluid grace of his watercolor technique. Romantic jungle inhabited by wild beasts he wrote watercolor on silk on the walls of the winter garden in the Central House of the pioneers in Moscow (1935-36). He also created murals for the Metropolitan Museum of Maternity and Child (1933, together with the VA VAFavorskiy ), for textile plant in Tashkent (1936), the pavilions at the Agricultural Exhibition (1939). Bruni is owned and painting the ceiling in the auditorium of the Central Theater of the Soviet Army. In the deadening atmosphere of the official "realism" 1930-40-ies. mobile, easy art Bruni came alive island of emotional poetry.