Dear Tom
& Eric,
In the following line-up, artists 2 through 7 were part of Peredvizhniki, AKA
Wanderers, AKA Circle of Itinerants, a cooperative Society for Traveling Art
Exhibitions formed in opposition to the St. Petersburg Academy of Art's
academic restrictions.
Ivan Konstantinovich Aivazovsky (family surname, Aivazian), July 29, 1817 - May
5, 1900. Born in Feodosiya, E. Crimea, to a poor Armenian merchant, he produced
over 6,000 works, more than half of them seascapes, i.e. Moonlit Seascape With Shipwreck, depicting a handful of men near a
lighthouse, one of whom points to floating wreckage. In The Ninth Wave (1850), sailors cling to floating wreckage in a
man-against-the-elements chiaroscuro. His masterpiece, Black Sea (1881), sensitively reproduces
whitecaps, sky, and clouds. Storm (1886) features floating wreckage in the (presumably) Black Sea, which he
painted in all weathers. His main inspirations were the Creation, Flood,
Gospels, and Pushkin. From 1844 he was the Russian Navy's staff painter, and
was court painter to three Ottoman Sultans, making eight trips to
Constantinople, 1845-90. Overly prolific, he made repeated variations of
melodramatic cliches, and was widely forged. He travelled throughout Russia and
Europe, and visited the Near East, Africa, and America.
Arkhip Ivanovich Kuindzhi, January 27, 1841 (or 1842) - July 24, 1910. Born in
Mariupol (now in Ukraine) to a Greek immigrant shoemaker, losing both parents
by age six. Photo retoucher. The Ladoga Lake (1873). Ukrainian
Night (1876) and Birch Grove (1879)
have extraordinary lighting, vivid colors, and chiaroscuro contrasts. See also Dnepr in the Night (1880 or 1881). The Steppe (1890), green land below a
light, blue-gray sky, is the visual equivalent of Anton Chekhov's same-named
story. Imperfections in his paints unfortunately darkened many of his canvases. Professor at St. Petersburg Academy of Arts, 1892-97, from
which he was fired for supporting student protests.
Isaac Ilyich Levitan, August 30, 1860 - August 4 [Old Style, July 22], 1900.
Born in Kybartai shtetl, Kaunas, Lithuania, to a rabbi's son. His Moscow School
of Painting fellow student, Nikolai Chekhov, introduced him to
brother Anton, who became the artist's lifelong friend. Levitan
excelled in the landscape of mood,
wherein nature is spiritualized (whatever that means). His melancholic,
pastoral landscapes, painted en plein air,
have few or no people. Compare the girl in Autumn
Day (1879) with the hunter and dog in Autumn
Landscape (1880). His Birch Forest (1885-89),
AKA Birch Grove (compare it with the
abovementioned Kuindzhi's version) features bright, saturated colors and bold,
contrasting light and shade. His Evening
on the Volga (1887-88), with its little boats on the shore, slate-blue
water across which is a low mountain range, clouds and pale sky, has been
labeled "the visible as a starting point for contemplation of the
invisible," i.e., the destiny of Russia. Vladimirka Road (1892), the main highway for Siberia-bound exiles,
contrasts nature's immensity with man's insignificance. Both sky and water are
juxtaposed in Evening Church Bells (1892)
and Over (or Above) Eternal Peace (1894),
the latter contrasting the might of the universe with man's transitory life.
Compare his Water Lilies (1895) with
those by Monet. Levitan spent his last year at Anton Chekhov's Crimean house,
not finishing Lake (1900), which he
also called Rus', thereby suggesting
the embodiment of the Russian landscape, people, and history.
Vasily Dmitrievich Polenov, June 1, 1844 - July 18, 1927, a military artist during
the 1877-78 Russo-Turkish War, achieved plein
air freshness of color, as did Levitan. His Moscow Courtyard (1878) depicts human beauty reconciled with
nature. His masterpiece, Christ and the
Sinner (1886-87), AKA Christ and the
Woman taken in Adultery, is, like many of his New Testament subjects, a
genre scene in a landscape environment.
Alexei Kondratyevich Savrasov, May 24, 1850 - October 8, 1897, was born, like
Aivazovsky, to a merchant family. He created the lyrical or mood landscape later
adopted by Vasilyev (our seventh and last artist) and Levitan. Compare Landscape with River and Angler (1859)
with Levitan's Autumn Day and Autumn Landscape, and Savrasov's Winter (1870) and its slate sky, with
Kuindzhi's Birch Grove and Levitan's Birch Forest. Later we will compare Savrasov's Sundown Over a Marsh (1871)
with Vasilyev's upcoming Swamp in the
Forest, for now only saying that the Russian Boloto means both marsh and swamp, whereas English differentiates
between the two. Savrasov's masterpiece, The
Rooks Have Come Back (1871), shows the winter-to-spring transition. His Rainbow (1873) is mostly white, plus two
pale colors. After his daughter's death, he became an impoverished,
shelter-hopping drunkard.
Ivan Ivanovich Shishkin, January 25, 1832 - March 20, 1898, was called
"Poet of the Russian Forest" for capturing the forest seasons and
changing landscape moods, and "the bookkeeper of leaves" for
accurately rendering plants. A Rye Field (1878). Bears animate Morning in a Pine Forest (1886). Compare the strollers with
umbrellas in Rain in an Oak Forest (1891)
with the girl in Levitan's Autumn Day and
the hunter and dog in his Autumn
Landscape, and Savrasov's Landscape
with River and Angler.
Feodor Alexandrovich Vasilyev, February 22 [New Style], 1850 - October 6 [New
Style], 1873, was born to a low-level government official, who did not
"tie the knot" until his son was four, thus branding the boy as
illegitimate. For a time Vasilyev was an assistant picture restorer. The Cloud (1860's) highlights the immensity
of nature above puny, man-made things. Compare the peasant in Before a Thunderstorm (1868) with
Levitan's Autumn Day and Autumn Landscape. Vasilyev's Barges on Volga (1870), like his other
paintings of that river, conveys a deep spirituality in keeping with the landscape of mood style he shared with
Savrasov and Levitan. Note the suffusion of light in Pond at the Sunset (1871). Moving to Crimea after his T.B.
diagnosis, he painted his masterpiece, Wet
Meadow (1872) from memory, imagination, and old sketches. Note the egrets
in the redundantly titled Swamp in the
Forest (1872), seeing as a swamp is simply a
waterlogged forest, and a marsh a waterlogged grassland without trees (q.v.
Savrasov's Sundown Over a Marsh).
Vasilyev's last work was In the Mountains
of Crimea (1873). Nikolai Ge said of him: He discovered for us the sky.
Please print out at least one copy of this email for tomorrow's
"interviewers." I also urge you to copy the wikipedia material on
these seven artists, and look at their pictures, especially the above-listed
ones, though some are from other sources. I'll try calling you tonight. Salud,
Frank