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First room
The invention of painting

As an introduction to the exhibition, the fi rst room illustrates the legend of Butades through the work of artists Joseph Wright of Derby, David Allan and Joseph Benoît Suvée. It also displays paintings by Matías Arteaga and Karl Friedrich Schinkel based on Quintilian (d. c. 96 AD) and attributing the origin of painting to the delineation of solar shadows on a wall. Finally, the last work in the room, by the contemporary painters Vitaly Komar and Alexander Melamid, returns to the legend of Butades in a wry view of the classicistic foundations of socialist realism.
The Origin of Socialist Realism


Joseph Wright of Derby (1734-1797)
The Corinthian Maid, 1782-1784
Oil on canvas, 106.3 x 130.8 cm
National Gallery of Art, Washington. Paul Mellon Collection
The Invention of the Art of Drawing

Joseph Benoît Suvée (1743-1807)
The Invention of the Art of Drawing, 1791
Oil on canvas, 267 x 131.5 cm
Groeningemuseum, Bruges

The Corinthian Maid

Vitaly Komar (1943) and Alexander Melamid (1945)
The Origin of Socialist Realism, from the Nostalgic Socialist Realism series, 1982-1983
Oil on canvas, 183.5 x 122 cm
Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey.
The Norton and Nancy Dodge Collection of Nonconformist Art from the Soviet Union