Russian Painting

by Peter. Leek

  145. Vassily Polenov, Lake at Gennesaret, 1889.

  Oil on canvas, 52 x 87 cm, Russian Museum, St. Petersburg.

  146. Isaac Levitan, The Vladimirka Road, 1892.

  Oil on canvas, 79 x 123 cm, Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow.

  147. Isaac Levitan, The Golden Autumn, 1895.

  Oil on canvas, 82 x 126 cm, Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow.

  In 1872, his painting Conifers marked a new phase in the painter’s artistic evolution. Nothing disturbs the calm of this scene. All the details are present: the bear, the flying bird, the pines that are all different one from the other. This is thus once again a very realistic scene but, at the same time, a new energy emanates from this painting, expressing a harmony that Shishkin had not reached up to that point. This painting was an immense success. The painter became friends with Kramskoï, leader of the Society. With remarkable perception, he corrected Shishkin’s awkwardness. Together, they very often went off to make sketches from nature.

  But it was during the 1880s that the artist attained the summit of his art. Pine Forest (1885) or After the Storm (1888) reflect great artistic liberty. Henceforth, the artist alternated light and dark rays, which allowed him to better translate space and to render the landscape more energetic and dynamic. He was increasingly preoccupied with the representation of light, which was not the case previously. His study Sunlit Pines (1886) reveals shadows and reflections that leave the light penetrate. During those years, his strokes became supple, dynamic, alert to reflected light while the crosshatching, for its part, was more sensitive and varied.

  The technical virtuosity and poetic majesty of his painting speak for themselves. Works such as Winter (1890) are unrivalled in the way they convey the texture of snow, while his summer landscapes such as Rye and Oak Grove powerfully express the beauty and colours of the Russian countryside. Morning in a Pine Forest, unforgettable for its bears, and Countess Mordvinova’s Forest at Peterhof are among the hundreds of paintings by him that capture the magic of the forest and the character of the trees. Indeed, Morning in a Pine Forest describes the awakening of the forest, the sun coming up, the fog slowly lifting; the foreground is in focus whereas the trees that are further away have fuzzy contours. The sliding light of the sun which chases the mist away little by little bestows great poetry on this magnificent piece of work. The lyricism of this wakening forest is like the signature of Shishkin’s immense maturity with respect to nature.

  Shishkin died while he was setting to work on a new painting, The Kingdom of the Forest, on 20 March 1898, leaving behind him an immense artistic legacy.

  During the 1870s the art of Arkhip Kuindzhi underwent an abrupt transformation. Many of the pictures that he painted in the early and mid-1870s — such as The Forgotten Village and The Pack-Ox Road in Mariupol — have muted tones, reflecting the harshness of life in rural Russia. Then Kuindzhi began to experiment with a completely different tonal range, resulting in the marvellously luminous quality of paintings such as After the Rain and the brightness of ones like The Birch Grove, both of which date from 1879.

  148. Isaac Levitan, Evening Bells, 1892.

  Oil on canvas, 87 x 107.6 cm, Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow.

  Enthralled by Kuindzhi’s new style, Repin declared that “the illusion of light was his God” and no other artist had “equalled the miraculous success of his paintings”. However, there were artists who tried to emulate Kuindzhi’s “lunar colours”, and ones who made similar use of dramatic light effects, such as Nikolaï Dubovskoi who painted The Calm Before the Storm in 1890.

  Vassily Polenov was also a master of pleasing light effects, amply demonstrated by his painting Overgrown Pond, a tranquil Moscow backyard, more farmyard than courtyard, that helped to establish a vogue for landscape paintings with prominent genre elements and nuances of light and shade. An enthusiastic advocate of plein-air painting, he succeeded Savrasov as head of the landscape studio at the Moscow College of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture.

  One of the greatest and best-known landscape painters among the Itinerants, Isaac Levitan, had the advantage of studying under both Savrasov and Polenov. Although his art is perhaps less epic than Shishkin’s, his style and subject matter are more varied — perhaps surprisingly, since he died at a comparatively early age. Levitan, like Shishkin, was a supreme master of the use of colour, composition, and light and shade. All the seasons of the year, the different times of day, and the infinite variety of nature figure in Levitan’s canvases. But, unlike Shishkin, who had a preference for summer landscapes, Levitan preferred the fresh colours of spring and the muted cadences of autumn. When he painted summer scenes, such as Secluded Monastery, he preferred to work in the evening, when the light was softer, or even at dusk. He also joined the Society of Itinerant Exhibitions. He was a contemporary of Nesterov, Korovin, Stepaniv, Bakcheev and Arkhipov. He was friends with Ostroukhov and Serov.

  149. Isaac Levitan, Above Eternal Peace, 1894.

  Oil on canvas, 150 x 206 cm, Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow.

  Summing up Levitan’s mature work, Chekhov (who was a friend) said, “Nobody before him achieved such astonishing simplicity and clarity of purpose… and I don’t know whether anyone after him will ever achieve the same.” Levitan’s paintings are in effect a hymn to nature. Autumn Day: Solniki and Summer Evening: Fence both express the vastness and emptiness of parts of Russia. The Vladimirka Road is a typical Russian plain that stretches out on the canvas and disappears in the distance. The sky is heavy, grey and cloudy, like a lid that weighs on the entire tract of land crossed by a road alongside of which run paths made by many feet. If the painting is marked by a certain feeling of sadness, an impression of solemnity also emanates from this empty space. The silhouette placed in the painting accentuates even further the feeling of solitude. On the subject of the road, Levitan said (remarks later recounted by the painter Kouvchinnikova), “It’s the Vladimirka road, the Vladimirka along which convoys of countless unhappy souls with chained feet formerly made their way toward the prisons of Siberia.” Further, Evening Bells is a delightful example of his handling of dappled light.

  He left a permanent mark on Russian painting by bringing to it the feeling of profound typically Levitanian poetry characteristic of Russian nature. This principle came in part from Savrassov because he believed that the particular merit of this artist was to have tried to “reveal in the most simple and ordinary things, the intimate, troubling and often sad traits that characterize Russian landscapes and act so strongly on the spirit.” (Masters of Art Speak of Art, Vol. 7, Moscow, 1970, p. 198) Indeed, what he appreciated most about this master was his “lyricism and infinite love of his native country”.

  Levitan’s art is characterized by the breadth of feeling expressed by his palette through various landscapes. Extolling the simplicity of aestheticism before all else, which only a great master has the capacity to succeed in, his paintings were first and foremost a simplification of shape and colour, while preserving the most expressiveness and realism possible.

  150. Isaac Levitan, March, 1895.

  Oil on canvas, 60 x 75 cm, Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow.

  151. Isaac Levitan, Springtime Flood, 1897.

  Oil on canvas, 64.2 x 57.5 cm, Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow.

  152. Igor Grabar, February Azure, 1904.

  Oil on canvas, 141 x 83 cm,

  Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow.

  153. Vassily Surikov, Zubovsky Boulevard in Winter.

  Oil on canvas, 42 x 30 cm, Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow.

  154. Konstantin Yuon, March Sun, 1915.

  Oil on canvas, 107 x 142 cm, Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow.

  155. Nikolaï Krimov, Windy Day, 1908.

  Oil on wood, 70 x 101 cm, Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow.

  156. Vassily Kandinsky, Red Church, 1901.

  Oil on plywood, 28 x 19.2 cm, Russian Museum, St. Petersburg.

  157. Vassily Kandinsky, Murnau with Church I, 1910.

  Oil and watercolor on cardboard, 64.9 x 50.
2 cm,

  Municipal Gallery of the Lenbachhaus, Munich.

  From the 1890s to the Post-Revolutionary Period

  With its championing of plein air techniques, Impressionism inevitably had a considerable impact on Russian landscape painting; one of the foremost Russian Impressionists was Grabar, whose favourite genre was landscape. In particular, he liked to paint sun and shadows on snow or the contrast between wintry skies and frosted trees, as in February Azure. Other snow scenes that are remarkable for their handling of light and colour include Serov’s Colts at a Watering Place, which makes brilliant use of pastel to capture the frosty sunset, and Surikov’s Zubovsky Boulevard in Winter, where the wintry effect is achieved through the pervasive use of blacks, blues and browns.

  The style and mood of Blue Spring by Vassily Baksheyev, an almost exact contemporary of Grabar, are reminiscent of the spring landscapes painted by Savrasov, who was one of his teachers. Baksheyev devoted his energies almost entirely to landscape painting from the early stages of his career, and the beauty of slender birches seen against a clear spring sky was a theme that he returned to again and again.

  In common with other painters who belonged to the Union of Russian Artists, Konstantin Yuon was attracted by the landscape of Old Russia, particularly by the ancient towns, with their onion-domed churches, monasteries and bustling markets. His urban landscapes, such as A Sunny Spring Day in Seigiev Posad — are often enlivened by human activity and the movement of birds or animals. After the Revolution, he produced landscapes such as his famous Industrial Moscow Morning (1949), which have a poetic quality expressing the dynamism of industry and the joy of work.

  Another of the painters associated with the Union of Russian Artists — and also with the Blue Rose group — was Nikolaï Krymov, who played an important role as a teacher of landscape painting in the post-Revolutionary period. Before the Revolution, he experimented with a variety of styles, including a Primitivist phase that resulted in landscapes such as Windy Day, notable for a pictorial quality and colour range inspired by Russian folk art.

  158. Martiros Saryan, Constantinople Street. Midday, 1910.

  Tempera on cardboard, 59.5 x 63.5 cm, Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow.

  159. Martiros Saryan, The Courtyard of my House, 1923.

  Oil on canvas, 102 x 68 cm, Armenian Painting Gallery, Etevan.

  Both landscape and folk art were important to Chagall and Kandinsky. The lovers and other dramatis personae that fly, loom or hover in so many of Chagall’s pictures — such as Over Vitebsk — do so above unmistakably Russian houses and streets. The Blue House (1917-20) features an isba (a traditional wooden house) in the foreground and, beyond it, a very Russian view painted in a style derived from Russian folk art. Chagall also painted a number of delightful views from or through windows, some of them realistic, others in a more symbolic style.

  Kandinsky’s early landscapes, such as that of Kochel in the Bavarian Alps, divulge some hints of his future Expressionism. But it was only after he went to live in Murnau — in the mountainous area outside Munich, where he shared a house with Jawlensky — that his move towards abstraction began to emerge, with canvases such as Boat Trip. This was painted in 1910, the year before he launched the Blaue Reiter (Blue Rider) group together with Franz Marc.

  One of the most spectacular landscape painters of the mid twentieth century was Martiros Saryan. Despite the length of his working life, Saryan’s landscapes never lost their feeling of spontaneity and delight in the scenic grandeur of Armenia and the Caucasus. Paintings such as Constantinople Street at Midday, The Courtyard of my House and Lake Sevan show the intensity of his colours and his instinct for dramatic composition. Saryan himself described how the central and southern Caucasus had a special enchantment for him: “There I first saw the sun and experienced intense heat. Caravans of camels with bells, nomads coming down from the mountains with tanned faces, with herds of sheep, cows, buffaloes, horses, donkeys or goats; the bazaars, the street life of the motley crowd; Muslim women slipping silently by in black and pink veils; the big, dark, almond eyes of the Armenian women — it was all that reality of which I had daydreamed back in childhood… Nature, many-faced and many-coloured, forged by a great unknown hand, is my only teacher.”

  160. Martiros Saryan, Lake Sevan, 1936.

  Oil on canvas, 73 x 53 cm, Private Collection.

  161. Ilya Repin, Apples and Leaves, 1879.

  Oil on canvas, 65 x 75.5 cm, Russian Museum, St. Petersburg.

  162. Mikhail Vrubel, Still Life with Plaster

  Mask and Sconce, 1885. Watercolor on paper,

  18.5 x 11.7 cm, Museum of Russian Art, Kiev.

  Still Life

  From the Eighteenth Century to the 1860s

  In Russia, still life did not emerge as a separate artistic category until the second half of the nineteenth century. Indeed, until that time there were relatively few Russian painters who devoted their energies primarily to still life. Its most brilliant proponent was Ivan Khrutsky (1810-85), whose decorative pictures of fruit and vegetables were influenced by the Dutch masterpieces displayed in the Hermitage. Dutch and Italian still lifes served as models for most of Khrutsky’s contemporaries — though one or two of them departed from the norm by substituting indigenous vegetables, such as onions, carrots, mushrooms and parsley, in place of the hothouse fruits typically included in the Dutch and Italian compositions.

  Some of Venetsianov’s pupils, such as Kapiton Zelentsov (1790-1845) and Alexeï Tyranov (1808-59), painted lively, minutely observed compositions of everyday objects. Still-life elements also figure frequently in portraits and pictures of interiors by these artists — for example, on the desk in the foreground of Soroka’s The Study in a Country House at Ostrovski.

  Count Fyodor Tolstoy (1783-1873), a friend and admirer of Venetsianov and relative of the famous novelist, was an exceptionally versatile artist who became known as a sculptor and medallist as well as for his silhouettes. In addition, he produced natural-history studies of birds and flowers, and interior scenes with such titles as At the Window on a Moonlit Night. One of the art forms at which he excelled was the creation of charmingly convincing trompe l’oeil miniatures, in pen-and-ink and gouache, featuring flowers and berries plus butterflies or birds.

  From the 1860s to the 1890s

  Although there are some pleasing still lifes from the second half of the nineteenth century, it was not until the earlier part of the twentieth century that still-life painting in Russia came into its own. Repin’s Apples and Leaves echoes the Dutch and Italian masterpieces of earlier centuries, which he would have had ample opportunity to study both while abroad and at the Hermitage.

  More distinctively, and slightly ahead of its time, the patterned background and vase of Mikhaïl Vrubel’s Dogrose belong to the decorative world of Art Nouveau, in contrast to the simple blocks of colour used in his Still Life with Plaster Mask and Sconce. Vroubel privileged, contrary to most of the landscape artists of the second half of the ninteenth century who lauded realism, a somewhat scenic and decorative beauty of the subject.

  Vroubel, who worked a great deal in the area of theatrical, monumental and decorative art, is often considered as one of the masters of Russian Art Nouveau. The range of colours that the painter preferred included all the shades of blue, from light blue to violet; combined with pink or green, these colours create the impression of a shimmering and changing surface. In fact, the subject served as a pretext for his stroke and his palette of colours. Born in Omsk in 1856, he only began painting later in life, in 1880, after having obtained a law degree from the University of Saint Petersburg. At the Academy of the Arts, he was a student of the teacher and graphic artist P. P. Tchistiakov. Just four years later, he was entrusted with the restoration of ancient frescoes in Kiev, in the twelfth century Kirillov Church. Vroubel also accomplished other paintings there, including a mural. In Kiev, Vroubel made sketches as well of the unfinished painting of the cathedral of St Vladimir that was under constru
ction. As of 1890, he lived in Moscow and was a member of the Abramtsevo circle that was composed of the Vasnetsov borthers, Ilya Repin, Vassily and Yelena Polenov, Mark Antokolsky, Ilya Ostroukhov and many others. His painting turned toward epic subjects inspired by the history of his country. Some historical portraits were painted before he launched himself into ceramic work and even invented a new method of baking. In addition, a number of decorations of properties, decors and costumes for Mamontov’s opera… are owed to him. Suffering from depression as of the beginning of the century, he nevertheless continued to create, perhaps to free himself from his stagnation. From 1904 to 1905 his illness was calmer; this was the moment in particular when he gave himself over to still lifes. The impressive painting Lilacs (1900) proves his disposition for this genre, which remained secondary in Russia for a long time.

  Like many other of his paintings, including the portrait of Savva Mamontov reproduced in the third part of this book, he left this still-life “unfinished” — whether as a conscious decision, through lack of time or because of the mental turmoil that plagued him periodically throughout his life, is not known. Whatever the case may be, Mikhaïl Vroubel undoubtedly inspired Symbolism in Russia more than anyone else did.

  163. Mikhail Vrubel, Dogrose, 1884.

  Watercolor on paper, 24.5 x 19.5 cm, Private Collection.