The Bashkir State Art Museum named after Mikhail Nesterov
One of the most striking works of the period of the artist's stay in Ufa was the painting "Red Midday". In it David Burliuk depicted the capital of Bashkortostan. The city is easily recognized thanks to the accurately reproduced city mosque. In addition, another minaret can be seen. Despite the fact that the landscape has a certain topographical reference, people and animals are painted very conventionally, in a primitive way. Burliuk uses bright and juicy colors, which makes the figures look like a decorative pattern. The artist fills the entire surface of the canvas evenly with numerous colorful details, thus the picture resembles a traditional Tatar carpet. Burliuk transforms steppe, ravines, villages and local residents into a plastic ligature of beautiful fabric. The whole space of the picture is woven from geometrized segments, and each has its own mini-plots: a horse running away from a dog, a horse with a cart, a man in red pants, a peasant woman with heavy buckets.
Being enthusiastic about plein air painting, Burliuk went to the sketches in the Ufa places with the local artists. One of them, Alexander Tyulkin, left memories of this: "Boys from the nearest streets and ravines always gathered around us. Suddenly, Burliuk says, hastily giving them coins or candies: "Run, boys along the street and shout: Burliuk! Burliuk! The artist Burliuk!» The band rushed through the streets shouting and whistling. And Burliuk tells us: That’s the way how fame is done!"