Dedicated to Don Quixote and other heroes of the much-loved novel by Miguel de Cervantes, Korzhev's "Don Quixote" series consists of 15 or so works created over two decades. "As a student I was already fascinated with the image of this fearless champion of justice," the artist reminisced. "One should not 'blame' Cervantes for that - it also had to do with our family. My father's attitude to life, his pursuits and failures reminded me of this indefatigable truth-seeker. As for my mother, well, she was exactly like Sancho Panza. Even the way they both looked - my father, tall and lean, and my mother, all round and rather small - was quite in line with those literary characters. But that was not all. Naturally, it never crossed my mind that I should use this to create my family's portrait. It was more complicated than that. It was important for me to understand and then communicate through my art the nobility and generosity of human spirit, and the willingness of human beings to perform feats of valor for a noble purpose." As Korzhev pointed out, "Russians have always viewed Don Quixote seriously, even as a symbolic hero." Further developing the train of thought expressed by Ivan Turgenev in his essay "Hamlet and Don Quixote", Korzhev elaborates on Cervantes' concept: "What would happen if a person with beliefs and moral development akin to those of Christ were to appear in real life?" It is perhaps no coincidence, then, that at the retrospective Korzhev's "Don Quixote" series leads into his biblical cycle. The artist turned to subjects from the Old and New Testaments following the death of his parents in 1986.... (http://www.tretyakovgallerymagazine.com/articles/3-2016-52/gely-korzhev-i-have-right)