Capriccio — in Italian, literally: whim. In both music and the visual arts, this genre prizes freedom from all dogmas and rules, along with the ability to improvise. The French writer Antoine Furetière, writing in the late 17th century, defined “caprice” in any art form as the power to surrender to imagination and fantasy. When creating their capricci, the old masters often employed what could be described as a “technique of shock.” Etymologically, capriccio connotes not only playfulness and pranks but also infernal horrors and death (capricciare — to tremble with fear).
This “technique of shock,” where the playful and ornate intertwine with the horrific, was pioneered by Giovanni Battista Piranesi in his Carceri (Prisons) etching series (1745–1760). Piranesi’s strange constructions, mechanisms, bridges, arches, and animated statues pull viewers into a virtual quest through worlds beyond comprehension. Torrents of deep black lines contrast with flashes of light, transforming architectural fantasies into breathtaking displays of sublime beauty.
Francisco Goya’s monumental Los caprichos series (1796–1797) elevated the “technique of shock” into what the artist himself described as “a critique of human errors and vices.” Goblins, witches, and monsters invade the Spanish kingdom’s social life, throwing it into a macabre revelry. These fantastical creatures overturn aristocratic decorum to expose the depraved core of human relationships. The extraordinary expressiveness and artistic brilliance of Goya’s drawing, combined with the velvety texture of his aquatint engravings, have captivated generations of artists, particularly 20th-century modernists. The most famous work in the series, The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters, depicts an artist consumed by his wild fantasies, assailed by owls, a lynx, and bats. Here, the fantastical and the magical are woven seamlessly with the nightmarish and terrifying.
Leonid Tskhe may well be the only contemporary artist capable of responding to the grand caprices of these old masters. His series are daring experiments in form and method, defying strict analysis. Tskhe’s creative process resists straightforward categorization, acting as an “unreliable narrator,” luring viewers into diverse scenarios of fantastical transformations and elaborate pranks. Caprices might be the most fitting term for such metamorphoses.
The ultimate caprice and prank in Tskhe’s work lies in how the seemingly graphic foundation of his paintings suddenly transforms into pure painting. Linearity and monochrome unexpectedly seduce the viewer with a sense of monumental volume, achieved through dynamic interactions between objects in the spirit of Baroque tenebroso (dark on dark) and chiaroscuro (flashes of light emerging from velvety darkness). According to Tskhe, his new series at the VLADEY gallery explores human embraces. As you look at these paintings, the images morph before your eyes, playing their own games, expressing their own whims. Tskhe creates a layered world of overlapping compositions that resemble sculptural groups, graphic studies, and grand mosaic panels simultaneously. How these diverse themes converge into a uniquely harmonious palimpsest remains an enigma.
However, it is possible to glimpse beneath the surface of this enigma.
First, it is essential to note that Leonid Tskhe’s paintings embody both classicism and avant-garde sensibilities. His works feature masterful chiaroscuro, rich textures, and extraordinary tonal gradations within a restrained palette — qualities that make him a worthy peer of Goya, Velázquez, and Caravaggio. His paintings of embraces evoke timeless Christian motifs, such as The Visitation, The Kiss of Judas, The Descent from the Cross, and the Pietà.
Yet the dynamic figures in Tskhe’s paintings resist being pinned down to anything familiar. Vibrant washes of color and fractured planes shift the conversation toward the “archaeology of the image,” a concept introduced by the Cubo-Futurists and perfected by Pablo Picasso. Wedges of geometric volumes and objects fracture space, slicing through it. Figures are stripped down to their primordial vulnerability, reminiscent of cave paintings and graffiti. The echoes of Picasso’s universal tragedy, Guernica, seem ever-present in this theater of capricious imagination. Deep, dark washes and volumes, captured and transformed by color, create the impression of a new kind of analytical painting. Tskhe peels back the layers of banal, everyday imagery, guiding us toward a reality untouched by rationality or imitation. This reality operates as a laboratory of creativity, existing within a mystical, alchemical dimension — a workshop where the world’s artistic styles and narratives swirl in the lantern-lit chambers of a true inventor of visual and graphic capricci.
The hypnotic nature of Tskhe’s layered, ever-changing worlds is rooted, in no small part, in his artistic education. In Russia, Tskhe studied in the studio of Andrey Pakhomov, a distinguished representative of a renowned Soviet dynasty of neo-expressionist masters. Pakhomov’s teaching method shares affinities with that of Pavel Chistyakov, mentor to Vrubel and Serov. Mastery of complex perspectives and dynamic poses, an intricate understanding of graphic line, and a constructive approach to composition were essential components of this training. Pakhomov’s emphasis on the living, active relationships between figures and objects — the mechanics of their interactions — shaped Tskhe’s artistic vision at the Russian Academy of Arts.
Today, Leonid Tskhe is pursuing a master’s degree under Professor Manfred Stumpf at the Offenbach Academy in Frankfurt am Main. Stumpf is a legendary artist in his own right, preserving the traditions of “capitalist realism,” a genre that wryly deconstructs the “socialist realism” of East Germany. Artists like Sigmar Polke and Gerhard Richter satirized Soviet realism, replacing it with collage-inspired pop art methods and groundbreaking explorations of pigments, paints, and images. Their experiments transformed the painted surface into a dynamic realm of constant evolution, where one image dissolves into another. Stumpf, deeply influenced by these traditions, has become a master of illusionistic and enigmatic works, blending digitally generated imagery with the emblematic language of ancient mystical treatises.
Tskhe has embraced Stumpf’s approach to contour and line as the “anatomy” of artistic language, transforming it in his own unique way. He weaves drawing into the mystery of his artistic transformations, embedding it with hidden knowledge and meaning. The graphic foundation of his images creates a monumental surface for his paintings, giving them relief and dimensionality. Waves of painterly forms sweep across these compositions, sparking a dialogue of imagination, transformation, and style — unraveling the enigma of Tskhe’s Capriccio.
—Sergey Khachaturov
