On July 14, 2020, Alexey Shaburov, director of the Association of Private Museums of Russia, visited the Life is Beautiful exhibition of embroidered paintings organized by the founder of the Traveling Museum-Gallery of Picturesque Embroidery Svetlana Dianova.
The exhibition was held at the Ostafyevo – the Russian Parnas State Museum-Estate from March 6 to July 19 with a quarantine break due to the COVID-19 epidemic.
Thirty works were presented by twelve talented craftswomen from different cities of Russia: Moscow, Shchelkovo, Saratov, Nizhny Novgorod, Krasnoyarsk, and one picture came from the USA, Florida. Each work is a famous painting embodied in complex multicolored embroidery.
For centuries, the mistresses of the Ostafyevo estate have been doing handicrafts, creating comfort and a special atmosphere of creativity and hospitality in the house. And during the days of the exhibition, one could travel from the present to the past and admire the beauty of the paintings, the embroidery of which took many months and even years.
“The exhibition is amazing. I discovered a new layer of culture for myself, which I knew very little about. The work of the craftswomen gave me great pleasure; especially the transmission of the expression of the eyes touched my heart. I could not even imagine that this could be done through embroidery. The feeling is very unusual”, – Alexey Shaburov shared his impressions.
During his visit to the Ostafyevo estate-museum, the head of the Association of Private Museums also met with its director Yuri Yevtyukhin and spoke about the Private Museums of Russia project and related plans and ideas. Video report from the Ostafyevo estate on Svetlana Dianova’s channel