PAX ROMANA. PART I

Exhibition of photographs and drawings by Maxim Atayants
Curator: Vladimir Sedov
 

The theme of this exhibition is the artistic discovery of the Ancient Roman architecture by Maxim Atayants. Being an architect from Saint Petersburg for a number of years he has been traveling through the provinces of the gone Roman Empire collecting a mosaic picture of ancient settlements in Northern Africa and the Near East. Tens of ancient cities and lonely temples have been included in the very complex routes of Atayants bringing him sometimes to troubles and always – to discoveries. As a result of his adventures the architect developed a totally new vision of the richness and the whole repertoire of the Ancient Roman architecture.

The findings made in Morocco, Algeria, Tunis, Libya, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria, Atayants has brought home. His material has an obvious scientific value as it practically for the first time represents monuments very remote or known very little. But this material collected by an architect is also of the highest artistic merits. Hundreds of magnificent photos and tens of drawings executed in the most original manner create a single and integral image of the Roman World, The Empire, Ancient Culture as a whole.

The photos reveal an insight of an architect, a professional but simultaneously they convey all the attentiveness, love and human involvement of the author. Brilliant graphic sketches are accomplished by author's auxiliary texts about the seen – reflections, notes, analogies, delights or worries. But what prevails on these sheets though the negligent unessential lines and dim contours is the raised image of ruins of the almost unknown and unexpectedly complex Roman World, a picture created anew and transported to Russia by the talented photographer and artist.

Russian version