Figure 1.--This painting by M.V. Nestorov is the "Youth of Saint Sergey Radonezhsky". The painting was done during 1892-97. For background information on Saint Sergey Radonezhsky, click on the image. |
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We do not yet have a great deal of information about Russian art, but we have begun to collect information about individual Russian artists. Some of the artists we have been able to find some information. Others all we have is their name and a painting. Hopefully our Russian readers will be able to provide some information. We note some fascinating images. Most come from the 19th or early 20th century. We do not yet have any images from the Soviet era. They may not be great art, but they would be of historical interest.
Here is a Soviet artist that we know nothing about. All we have is one paiting done in 1967. It show a little girl in hat looks like a white coat and winter hat on a white hobby horse.
Pavel Andreevich Fedotov was born in Moscow during 1815. His father was a retired military officer. He attended the Moscow Cadet School. It was not common in other countries for artists to come from a military background, but Fedotov served 10 years in the Finland Regiment of the Imperial Guards stationed in St. Petersburg. Fedotov and many of his fellow-officers dabeled in art as amateurs. Fedotov also played the flute. We note many portraits he painted as well as interesting genre works. We note an interesting portrair of the
Zherbin Children (1850-51), apparently one of his last works.
Makovsky, Konstantin (Russia, 1839-1915): Makovsky is best known as a painter of Russian folk scenes, especially of rural peasant life. As a result he provides us some fascinating depictions of how Russian boys dressed in the 19th century. His paintings are highly detailed and very accurate. He was a founding member of the revolutionary movement known as the "Wanderers". He established himself in an early phase of his career as a champion of Russian subject matter. He had an enormous impact on the direction of art in Tsarist Russia. He advocated freedom from restrictive Academic rules and subject matter.
We note a Russian artist named A.U. Morozov who painted a peasant school in the mid-19th Century. The school was painted in 1865. Morozov was a student of the romantic style of painting. He was one of the 14 artists who protested about what could and could not be subjects for paintings. Tsarist Russia in the 1860s had strict regulations about what artists could paint. We do not have complete details on these regulations, but I think that peasent scenes were not part of what artists were allowed to paint. Morozov's philosophy was to paint refelecting peotry of the soul. His work concentrated on the positive side of life and not its negative aspects. I'm not sure who the land owner was. So often landowners are depicted as being cruel and explotive. This of course was the image promted by the Soviets. It not doubt was accurate in many cases. It is nice to see it was not always the case. The painting is a wonderful depiction of a 19th century Russian school.
A British reader notes the work of M.W. Nesterov, a noted Russian artist. He painted some intraguing historical ans religious scenes. One scene set in the the 19th Century shows a boy wearing a Russian blouse in the countryside talking to a hooded figure. It seems that the boy is dreaming and in the dream he meets the spirit of death. This spirit will take the boy away to heaven. Despite this being a sombre theme I thought the boy's clothes were interesting as he appears to be in Russian clothes. He is not one of the more useful articts providing clothing depictions, but his images are intreaging.
Vasily Perov was educated in the provincial Arzamass School of Art. During 1853-61 Perov studied at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture. He lived in Paris during the early 1860s studying art. Returning to Russia, Perov became a founding member in the Circle of the Itinerants. In 1886 Vasily Perov was awarded the title of member of the Petersburg Academy of Arts. Perov is best known for his sympathetic genre scenes and portraits, including serfs and peasants.
Fedora Pavlovich Reshetnikov was a popular Soviet artist. He was born in 1906 and was still a boy at the time of the Revolution. We have few biographical details at this time. Soviet painting was highly realistic. Stalin did not like abstract art. And that view continued even after his death. One of Reshetnikov's most popular paintings was "Poor Grades Again" (1952). It is a social scene that many can identify with. The boy has had many school reports. All are disappointing. The younger boy has a bike. I giuess he is doing ok at school. The only friend the boy has is his dog. His brother and sister and mum are not happy that he has not got a good school report.
Nicholas Roerich became one of Imperial Russia’s most famous artists. In fact he had wide ranging interests. He has been described as a Russian archeologist, painter, philosopher, and theosophist. Much of his art work was about Russian History. He was born in Saint Petersburg to the family of prosperous notary public. Nicholas lived around the world, spending many years in India until his death in the Punjab. His father had him study law, but allowed him to also study art. His interests were very wide ranging, but were strongly oriented toward art. He left Russia with his family after the Revolution, but undewent a series pf anti- and pro-Soviet conversions. Given his conflicting orientation it is good he did not return to Russia during the stalinist era.
Svetoslav Roerich is an important modern Russian artist. His father was the artist Nicholas Roerich (1874- ) He became one of Imperial Russia’s most famous artists. His art work was about Russian History. His mother was Helena Shaposhnikov. Helena was related to the Russian composer Mussorgsky.She met her husband in 1899. There were two sons. Georget the eldest was born in 1902. Svetoslav their youngest son was born in St Petersburg (1904). Svetoslav developed from childhood a lifelong interest in art. His first teacher was father. He and his older brother George followed their everywhere. Several family photographs have survived. They show the boys dressed in sailor at different times throughout their childhood. The family fled Russia after the Revolution. He began to pursue architecture in England (1919). He moved to America and entered Columbia University's school of architecture (1920). He was awarded the Grand Prix at the Sesquicentennial Exposition in Philadelphia (1926).
He was attracted to India where he lived for many years. Primeminister Nehru awarded him the International Award and the Padma Bhushan. His paintings of Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi are national treasures which are displayed in the historic Central Parliament Hall. He married Indian movie star Devika Rani, widow of producer Himanshu Rai (1945). She is a revered figure in India, referredcto as "The First Lady of the Indian Screen".
He purchased a plantation on the outskirts of Bangalore--Tataguni. He chose it in part because it was near Sri Sri Ravi Shankar's Art of Living Ashram. The family's residence in Manali, India, has been turned into an art gallery, a process he began (1962). He never lost interest in Russia. He was named an Honorary Academician of the Art Academy of the USSR, and was an honorary member of the Bulgarian Academy of Art.
We know nothing about this Russian artist. His name was B. Cepob. A reader tells us this is more likely Serov. The artist appears to be Valentin Alexandrovich Serov. His father was the composer Alexander Serov. Valentin was born in 1865. His father died when he was still quite young (1871). Valetin lived with his widowed mother (née Bergman) in Munich (1872-73) While there Valetin took art lessons from the artist K. Kepping. They then moved tp Paris (1874). Valentin would visited Ilya Repin's studio. He became fond of Valentine. Valentine and his mother lived for a while at Abramtsevo which was the estate of the industrialist Savva Mamontov and a noted cultural center (1875). There Valentine was exposed to a rich cultural mileau--artists, musicians and actors. He was educated by notable Russian artists. At a young age Valetine demonstrated impresive drawing kills. He was able to catch the likeness of an individual with speed and confidence. We note one portrait of a curly haired little boy in a white outfit, painted in 1901. It is a brilliabtlypainted image.
We note a painting by V. Snopov of the Lenin and Petroka with four children. We are not sure just who the children are, The painting is remaravly similar to the photograph here so presumably represents a scene in Gorky, only the children are different. One boy wears a Red Army cap. We know nothing about
the artist at this time. It seems arather cartoonish work, but the subject is interesting. This seems a typical piece of Soviet art work. Any kind of
abstraction or impressionist art was dicouraged as part of Stalin's personal taste. This became known as Soviet realism. It continued long after Sytalin's death in 1953.
We have been able to find no information about Vasily Steinberg other than he was a Russian painter in the early 19th century. The name suggests German Jewish origins. He appears to have painted genre scences, incliding one 1839 portrait of a serf sheaperd boy in southern Russia.
Alexey Venetsianov was active in the early 19th century. He painted some wonderful images of early 19th century Russian life. Some of the paintings depict upper-class life. His best remembered paintings, however, are his masterfull images of Russiam peasant life in the years just before the abolotion of serfdom. Some of the paintings include Russian serf boys.
We know nothing about Russian artist Petrov Vodkin. We do know a distinctive portrait of a Russian boy painted by him, probably in the 1960s. It strikes us that the brooding peasant boy is more appropriate for the pre-Revolutionary er that the Socialist utopia of the 1960s. Perhaps the artist was painting a historical imahe, although there is no way of telling this from the painting.
We know nothing about this Soviet artist except that he painted during the 1960s. We are not even sure about his name because of the Cyrilic script. He pains in a realistic style, albeit not the figures are rather stalized. I don't think Soviet artists were allowed to diverge too much from ralisti depictions. Here it looks like two children with their gradmother in an orchard.
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