I was not thoroughly familiar with Leopold Dzadzamidze’s colourful world, full of kindness and love. I knew about the tragic fate of this person, related with his unexpected death at the age of 44. I also knew that a great part of his paintings, gathered at the Painter’s House and intended for an exhibition, was destroyed by fire during the “Tbilisi war” in 1991-1992. I thought that perhaps his paintings must have marked with certain sadness. However, my expectations were not at all justified. Leopold Dzadzamidze’s artistic world expresses direct, sincere love for a human being, it is cheerful and light. The paintings are simple at a glance, they reflect what the artist sees at a given moment. But on the other hand, upon closer observation, the viewer discovers a quite deep and significant search of the artist.
Leopold Dzadzamidze worked in a remarkable period – the 1950s-1960s. Socialism was “liberated” from “Stalin” pressure. An illusion appeared that the period of creative freedom came again. But the impossible did not become completely possible. However, this change yielded its result and all directions of culture developed interestingly. The generation, brought up on the basis of a quite significant and great tradition, as happens in important periods, found new expressive means, discovered a new form and interpreted reality in a new way. In order to counterbalance the imposed requirements and Painter Leopold Dzadzamidze 31 set artistic principles, representatives of this generation found corresponding means and through symbols, metaphor and humour succeeded in demonstrating their attitude towards reality. The main point was that they won a victory over time and freed it from the artificially elevated mood - reality in their work became real, immediate, and not idealized in the Soviet manner. The world of artists of this generation – very profound, well thought out, aesthetically fascinating, slightly romantic and marked with features of neorealism (based on the form of life and relations between humans), is free. It is free because owing to the underlying meaning, humour, metaphor, in other words, creative, philosophical-analytical thinking and the free manner of painting, a highly interesting artistic form is created, which presents to the viewer an opportunity of thinking, understanding, thus making him or her a participant of the creative process.
Leopold Dzadzamidze mostly worked in the genre of landscape. From the end of the 1950s he was a member of the painters’ group gathered by Elene Akhvlediani. They actively travelled to various areas of Georgia and each of them depicted the picturesque landscape of Georgia in their own individual manner. Elene Akhvlediani, herself a master of landscape, sought to assist the young generation to interpreted landscape with all its depth, to discover in the peculiar charm of views and reflect in different ways the general and unique, in which the main character of the artistic image of different areas of Georgia would be expressed in depth, exactly as she felt and created.
Leopold Dzadzamidze’s attitude towards the world was from the beginning distinguished by a similar approach. In his paintings it is clear that the painter is imbued with a certain emotion towards the environment which he should turn into a composition. He perceives as a whole a view, seen from a height and extending in space, as well as a small section, a street corner, a part of a forest path, or a tree. There are many paintings interesting in this regard: Atskuri Castle (Oil on canvas. 76x105), Cypresses (1960. Oil on caedboard. 65x50) Eucalypts (1957. Oil on cardboard. 34x24), Tallinn (1965. Oil on Cardboard. 70/50) and others. Each composition renders a certain emotion or the character of a particular place. The character in its turn derives from the artist’s approach, his interest.
Sometimes, like the Impressionists, Leopold Dzadzamidze wished to depict a particular moment of time, its changing nature, which was demonstrated in depiction of different textures, reflected light, the effect of light on surfaces of various colours. Similar to the Impressionists, the painter often depicted the same view at different times of the day, in different seasons and observed the tonal and textural changes, being fascinated by this variety of nature. The paintings are noteworthy for their airiness and lightness: River Besleti (1962. Oil on Cardboard. 67/100), Lake Ritsa (1960. Oil on Cardboard. 35x50), Seascape (1959. Oil on Canvas. 40x70), River (1960. Oil on Cardboard. 35x25), Northern Idyll (1963. Oil on Cardboard. 70x100), etc.
Often, like the Post-Impressionists, he was interested in an in-depth interpretation of the essence of a phenomenon or an object, its eternal idea, which was revealed in the sharpness of the colour resolution and its symbolism, the Cezanne-like typology of the form or character. Tallinn (1965. Oil on Cardboard. 70x50), Dagestan, Mountains (1965. Oil on Cardboard. 50x70), Dagestan (1965. Oil on Cardboard. 65x86), Mountain Landscape (1965. Oil on Cardboard. 50x70), Megrelian Outhouse Kitchen (1961. Oil on Cardboard, 50x70) as well as many other places and objects were embodied by the painter in compositions of a decorative character, created with vivid colour patches. In these compositions, an image has its own specific colour, which is not influenced by light or the factor of time. Their aesthetic charm results from the free rhythm of colour patches and contour outline and it evokes the feeling of ease and freedom.
Leopold Dzadzamidze in his work created the series of views of various regions of Georgia – Abkhazia, Samegrelo, Svaneti, Guria, Achara, Imereti, Kakheti, Qazbegi, Tbilisi, Mtskheta. But he was not confined to artistic images of Georgia – the Baltic countries, Caucasia, Kislovodsk – also became an object of his interest. Each region is depicted with its unique characteristic features, the paintings are distinguished by lightness, cheerfulness, calm and intimate character, strength, pride, inaccessibility, depth, extensionp Nature in his paintings is always benevolent, even when we see the northern frosty seashore or ships in the frozen sea, but unlike southern, the northern nature is stricter. This mood is defined by the restrained character of colour, the monotony of cold tones.
The portraits, more typified artistic images, created by this genuine master of landscape, are equally interesting – a Lithuanian girl, a shepherd, a fisher girl, a Kakhetian collective farmer, a woman wearing glasses, grandfather, and many others. The extreme generalization of form, light accentuation of typical details, interesting colour contrasts serve as the foundation for quite expressive rendering of characters in his portraits.
In the process of creation of representations of nude models, it is observable that Leopold Dzadzamidze takes interest in totally different types of aesthetics. The painter, inspired by the theme of Danae, resorts in his works to a completely free manner of painting, but at the same time, repeats as it were so typical theme of a curtain and the woman’s posture. In other paintings we may find a connection with Goya’s bold paintings. The woman’s silhouette is outlined by a highly expressive contour outline and is represented against the background of a decorative landscape, depicted in the Cubist-Fauvist style. Leopold Dzadzamidze appears to a certain extent inspired by Modigliani’s elongated, sincere artistic images of amazing tenderness when he creates the artistic image of a girl in a room, lying on a bed, looking through illustrations in a book opened in front of her. In spite of the inspiration and relation with the works that have become classics, Leopold Dzadzamidze is completely free from influence, he is distinguished by his own hand and individualism of interpretation of an artistic image, which makes his paintings especially fascinating.
For Leopold Dzadzamidze the basic artistic means is colour. The sense of colour is so keen and profound that it gives the painter freedom in creation of the compositional structure and forms of representations. Leopold Dzadzamidze’s painting, his artistic world is created by interrelation of quite vivid, contrasting, opaque colours. The basic, general forms are rendered on the painting surface by short, broken brushstrokes of various colours, which exactly by the organic synthesis of different colours form a single whole and define the character of an artistic image. The character of an artistic image is for the most part carefree, expressing kindness and love.
At the beginning I have mentioned the tragic moments from the painter’s life and also indicated the general character of his work, the quality of delighting the viewer. From the present-day viewpoint, Leopold Dzadzamidze should be assigned to happy painters. The descendants took great care and appreciated his work. The present catalogue is a clear confirmation of this attitude. This is exactly a demonstration of the humanism which was characteristic of Leopold Dzadzamidze himself, this is the love which warms his paintings.