Night tale. (2021) Drawing by Svetlana Gudilova

This picture was written under the impression of Rimsky-Korsakov's music of the "Scheherazade" theme.
Scheherazade is one of the Shah's wives. His first wife cheated on him and he executed her. After that, he married a new woman every day and executed them all in the morning so that he would no longer be deceived.


Scheherazade was a very educated woman and understood that death awaited her in the morning. Therefore, at night she began to tell the Shah an interesting story. But by the morning I did not have time to tell it. Shah was very interested to hear the continuation of the story, and he did not execute Scheherazade in the hope of hearing the end of the story the next night. But Scheherazade ended one tale and began another. By morning, the end of the story was again not known, and the Shah had to postpone the execution of his wife again. Thus, Scheherazade told the Shah 1001 fairy tales. He got used to her and in the end did not want to kill her.

The composer Rimsky-Korsakov described some of the fairy tales in his work, and the main theme was the leitmotif of Scheherazade's voice. It was this leitmotif that became the basis of my painting.
Scheherazade's voice is gentle and moving, full of different colors. He immerses us in a magical nighttime tale.

My grandfather was an artist and since childhood I developed a craving for fine arts. I spent a lot of time drawing, but my parents decided that I needed to make music and therefore I received a professional music education.
Even while studying music, I learned about myself such a feature that when I listen to a piece of music, picturesque colorful images appear in my head. I believed that this happens with every person who listens to music. And only at the institute I learned that this feature is very rare and even scientifically studied. Its name is SYNESTHESIA.
Synesthesia is a type of color hearing in which musical sounds evoke color associations in a person.
In the paintings, as a color basis for the background, I take the sound tonality in which the work is written, and then convey the music of classical composers with the help of paints and colors.
My paintings are filled with music. When I paint pictures, I listen to a piece of music, and if the piece I am listening to is vocal, then I sing ... I am a laureate of international competitions in opera vocal and performing another piece, my picture is filled with live sounds and vibrations of music ...
And if the piece is instrumental, then I look for its piano score, and after the painting is finished, I perform that piece of music that inspired me on the piano and, accordingly, I also fill it with music ..

Why do I use seascapes for color rendering, and not abstraction?
The fact is that sea waves beat against the shore with a certain rhythm.
Dante also used the rhythm of the sea to compose the verse of his works. And music, as you know, is rhythmic.
The sea for me is the most alive on earth and changing its state; in my opinion, it is best suited for conveying a musical mood. Indeed, in different types of art, the state of mind was compared with natural phenomena. And what can disturb the soul as strongly as a sea storm, or soothe it, as the sound of water of quiet and gentle waves?
My paintings are the material embodiment of music, so you won't see animals or birds on them. This way I want the extra details not to interfere with the color perception.
Not everyone is given a color hearing, so now, I want to share this quality of mine with other people and show them how beautiful a piece of music can look.
I want other people to be able to see what they hear ...

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