"We’re on Vacation" (1972–73) by Dmitry Fedorovich Bogorodsky explores the tension between personal freedom and state control in late Soviet life. Painted during the Brezhnev-era stagnation, the work blends official Soviet styles with elements of nonconformist art, turning a quiet domestic scene into a psychological statement.
A bright orange circular table dominates the composition. Its geometric force, paired with the sharply angled tablecloth, recalls El Lissitzky’s Constructivist poster Beat the Whites with the Red Wedge (1919), linking revolutionary design to an otherwise still, introspective space.
A solitary woman sits near a small window, her figure rendered in muted tones and barely distinguishable from the interior around her. The title We’re on Vacation reads as ironic—nothing in the image evokes rest or liberation. The tight space, subdued presence, and lack of interaction suggest emotional stasis and quiet disquiet.
Bogorodsky’s warm palette—deep oranges and browns—implies comfort, but contrasts with the isolation in the scene. The window opens onto a small sliver of blue sky, a hint of escape or possibility, but it remains distant and inaccessible. The simplified forms and restrained color range connect the work to the Severe Style, a more austere, realist response to Socialist Realism. At the same time, the atmosphere—ambiguous, internal, and subtly resistant—aligns it with Soviet Nonconformism: a visual language that questioned control not through defiance, but through stillness and suggestion.
Born in 1943 in Moscow, Bogorodsky came from a well-known artistic family. His father was the Soviet academician painter Fedor Bogorodsky, and his mother, Sofya Razumovskaya, was a prominent art critic. Growing up around major figures like Aleksandr Deyneka and Arkady Plastov gave him early exposure to the Soviet art world.
He joined the Union of Artists of the USSR in 1975 and later became Chairman of the Board for the Association of Theater, Film and Television Artists in 1994. He also held positions in the Union of Cinematographers of Russia and the Nika Cinematographic Academy.
