The dark highway. The headlights briefly illuminate some indistinct buildings. The landscape is not visible - as if it does not exist. Endless turns. We are headed to Farhad Khalilov’s workshop. We barely talk. I'm excited. (Maybe he is too?)
Here we are, finally. The place is far away from the city. How is it possible to travel that far every day? But he does! The distance travelled itself deserves respect. After all, the national artist of Azerbaijan, for sure, could have a workshop in the center of Baku. But he prefers to be alone. He prefers a cell, staying alone with his work and his mission.
But I should correct myself. Here I talk mainly about my own feelings. The feelings that arise in me when I am surrounded by paintings.
And the feelings are unique and strong indeed. I have never seen so many paintings in one place. Of course, museums and exhibitions don’t count. There you feel completely different - those are the places where individuality sometimes disappears behind multiple sounds and views.
But the picture here is not the same. Huge canvases. However, they are not perceived as giant ones—on the contrary, it feels that there is never too much painting. Otherwise, it will not work, nor will it sound or have impact.
I am being immersed in the incredible world built by painting. To be more exact - the world born of painting. Because nobody built this world intentionally. It emerged naturally, just like nature.
I feel that I walk down the hall with walls covered in paintings. The paintings are merged one into the other. Sometimes they radiate warmth, sometimes - cold. The colors - purple, pale gray - are pleasing to the eye. Instinctively, I want to touch the surface of the paintings to feel their elasticity, softness, tenderness. Senses work.
People often ask: “What did the artist want to say with this painting?” Nothing! He just materialized what he felt was living inside him - in his soul, his heart, in his hand, after all! A simple paint conveys these elusive internal movements. While we want to look, grasp and comprehend, and be free to perceive the results of artistic works in our own way - similar to what the author thinks or otherwise.
That day I perceived the author’s paintings as congenial. I don’t particularly like this word but it is absolutely appropriate here because it has the word “genius” inside. A genius of the artist. It is so important to be in the right place at the right time! Farhad’s workshop is this very place. Here I saw plenty of beautiful paintings and understood how much I love art. I understood that I am an ideal consumer of such art.
What was so exciting about it? I remembered that I was standing in front of Rembrandt's painting "Ahasuerus and Haman at the Feast of Esther” at the Pushkin Museum and couldn’t take my eyes off it. I understood that painting is capable of conveying the most incredible things - not only deep human feelings, but also historical, epochal, and tragic concepts.
Farhad's abstractions excited me no less. Abstraction is his world now and it allows him to abstract himself (tautology enhances meaning) from momentary reality and to immerse himself in completely different thoughts and ideas. As if the first days of creation are coming. The painting turns into life-giving blood. This process is exhausting and tragic. Tragic indeed - perhaps, this word most accurately describes what I feel is happening: a new being, a new universe emerge from the paintings that surround me. The tragedy of destruction and birth is so evident to a viewer. That is, to the creator himself. That’s why I want to call Farhad a person who suffers - literally for the whole world.
This perception is combined with Farhad’s cheerfulness, sociability, friendship, and hospitality quite naturally. The artist says about his work: “I just sit here in my workshop and daub.” It sounds unpretentious…
Meanwhile, what he is doing now, in my opinion, is the most talented and interesting out of all the art he has created throughout all his life so far.