The experience of a spiritual, metaphysical or real "journey to the East" has been enriching European and Russian culture for many centuries. For Russia, the problem of "East-West" from the second half of the XIX - beginning of the XX century became particularly relevant in the cultural context, going beyond history and geopolitics: N. Rimsky-Korsakov, V. Vereshchagin, P. Kuznetsov, N. Berdyaev, N. Roerich... This tradition is also supported by Ilya Komov's creative expedition to India in 2005.

Continuing and developing the priority line of his work - "Russian Portrait", the artist creates a series of works"Russian Portrait of India"*. If we turn to the external, everyday side of this journey, it will undoubtedly evoke associations with the travels of V. Vereshchagin. Ilya Komov writes life itself. He descends to the bottom of Old Delhi and, ignoring security, works in the most risky places, posing as beggars, vagabonds, children of the street. A few days spent in the Sikh community, a long journey to Kurukshetra allows him to see the life of his heroes from the inside out. He writes directly in the market, in the meat aisles, sometimes up to his ankles in chicken blood, and now and then he hears the chopping of chicken heads behind him. In parallel with this, work is underway on a portrait of a TV presenter or a successful politician. Komov creates in India a series of portraits of real people, our contemporaries, while in the works of V. Vereshchagin, made in the East, the characters depicted are only part of the entourage of an exotic landscape. In the works of Nicholas Roerich, the landscape becomes the main character of the work-it is self-sufficient emotionally and spiritually.

Almost all of I. Komov's portrait works made in India are practically not burdened with details of everyday life, fragments of the interior or landscape. Unmistakable interest in individuality, "characterization", strong emotional coloring of images prevail over the social or cultural identification of the character. The composition of the portrait is decided in such a way that the character seems to be trying to escape, leave the canvas frame and get as close to the viewer as possible, entering into a dialogue with him.

It would be surprising to expect coloristic and stylistic closeness of works written in the Central Russian zone and in the East. Bold combinations of colors, close to the natural colors of the earth, and" open "colors became the key moment in the pictorial solution of the "Indian cycle". The adequacy of both traditions - Russian and Indian-is striking. The precision and exquisite plasticity of faces and gestures, the psychological power of open color and the sharpness of forms combine the swiftness of a live full-scale impression with the scale of a wall painting. The murals of Guriy Nikitin and the cave paintings of Ajanta, which are so far apart, paradoxically meet under the painter's brush.

The authenticity and recognizability of the images created by the artist in India was emphasized by the director of the International Museum of Modern Art, Mr. Rajiv Lochan, who opened the exhibition of I. Komov in Delhi. High-ranking government officials of India who visited the exhibition told the author that thanks to what they saw, they would now be able to perceive the ordinary people of their country in a new way. I. Komov was highly honored - to be invited to an audience with the chairman of the ruling Indian National Congress party, Mrs. Sonia Gandhi, who noted that his works convey the artist's admiration for the people of India.

Here is just one entry from the book of reviews of the exhibition in Delhi: "... in a soulful pictorial portrait - the very essence of India."

The view of the European, Russian artist I. Komov, on India, its beautiful people, its nature and culture continues and develops the theme of "traveling to the East". "The reverse movement from West to East, apparently, is an internally inevitable dialectic of European culture," wrote Nikolai Berdyaev...

In 2006, for his work on the cycle "Russian Portrait of India", I. Komov was nominated for the Silver Medal of the Russian Academy of Arts.

Muscovites saw India through the eyes of the artist Ilya Komov in early summer last year-at the State Museum of Oriental Art, where the exhibition "Russian Portrait of India" was held, and in November the exhibition of I. Komov was opened at the Embassy of the Republic of India in the Russian Federation.

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