Konstantin Trutovsky

Konstantin Trutovsky (1826-1893) was a Ukranian-Russian painter.

 By the Well

 Christmas Caroling in the Ukraine

 City Travellers Being Offered Fruit at a Ukrainian Roadside Dwelling (1873)

[more about this painting]

 In the Hayloft (1872)

Round Dance in Kursk Province

Alexei Bogolyubov

Alexei Bogolyubov (1824-1896) was a landscape painter.

 Illumination of the Kremlin (1883)

 St. Petersburg at Sunset (1850)

 Riding on Neva River (1854)

 The Ipatievsky Monastery Near Kostroma (1861)

 View of the Smolny Convent from the Great Ohta (1851)

Winter in Borisoglebsk

Easter Procession in Yaroslavl (1863)

Vasili Maksimov

Vasili Maksimov (1844-1911) painted mostly genre scenes.

 At the Monastery Gate

 The Division of the Family Property (1876)

 Field of Rye

The next painting is quite a celebrated work. 

 It's All in the Past (1889)

 Sewing of the Dowry (1866)

The Boy Mechanic (1871)

 The Diploma

 The Forest Keeper (1893)

 Trying on a Robe 

  View of the City of Rybinsk

Who's There?

Nikolay Kasatkin

Nikolay Kasatkin (1859-1930) was a rare example of a Tsarist-era painter who successfully transitioned to the Soviet era.

 In the Anteroom of the District Court (1897)

 The Orphans

 Rival Ladies (1890)

What follows is one of the most dramatic, emotional paintings I've ever seen. A soldier has come home from service to find his wife has had a child with another man. Incandescent with rage, he asks simply, "Who?" One gets from the wife an impression of shame, fear, but perhaps also resistance to answering the question. Obviously, paintings with infidelity as a theme have been done the world over, but the sheer rawness and emotional honesty of this painting could only (at least in the 19th century) be found in the Russian tradition.

Who? (1897)

 Poor People Collecting Coal in an Abandoned Pit (1894)

Fedor Bronnikov

Fedor Andreyevich Bronnikov (1827–1902) painted historical scenes.

 At the Chapel (date not known)

 Consecration of the Herm (1874)

 Cursed Field - Place for Execution in Ancient Rome, Crucified Slaves (1878)

Pythagoreans' Hymn to the Rising Sun (1869)

 The Roman Baths (1858)

Parable of Lazarus (1886)

Alexander Dmitrievich Litovchenko

Alexander Dmitrievich Litovchenko (1835-1890) was a Ukranian-born painter who specialized in painting historical scenes.

 Charon Carries Souls across the River Styx (1889)

 Ivan IV of Russia Demonstrates his Treasures to the Ambassador of Queen Elizabeth (1875)

 The Italian envoy Calvucchi Sketches the Favorite Falcons of Tsar Aleksei Mikhailovich (1889)

Young Tsar Alexis Praying Before the Relics of Metropolitan Philip 

in the Presence of Patriarch Nikon (1886)

What's so great about Russian painting?

I had been collecting fine art (digitally) for some time before discovering Russian painting. It took some time before I realized that there was something truly special about the Russian tradition. So what is it?

I think many of the particular qualities about Russian painting that make it great, and unique, stem from the Russian landscape itself, and from the character and history of her people. The Russian landscape, as many a would-be conqueror has discovered, is vast, elemental, capable of great ferocity as well as transcendent beauty. Not surprisingly, there has been for centuries a great tradition of landscape painting in Russia.

I think one of my favorite things about Russian paintings of people is that, unlike many other national traditions, they are unafraid to depict strong, dramatic emotions.

To start this blog off, I thought I would share a few of my nominations for greatest Russian paintings - some of the best of the best.

First is one of the greatest of all Russian nature paintings, by the celebrated landscape artist Ivan Shishkin. This amazing creation is a prime example of the twin characteristics of Russian landscape art: fine detail and painting on a grand scale.

 Ivan Shishkin: Morning in a Pine Forest (1889)

Another painting on a grand scale is the following celebrated work by Ilya Repin. The canvas measures over 6 feet by 11 feet! The story told in this painting is of a group of Cossacks writing an insulting and profane reply to the Turkish Sultan who demanded that they submit to Turkish rule.

 Ilya Repin: Reply of the Zaporozhian Cossacks to Sultan Mehmed IV of Turkey (1880-1891)

I think no other nation than Russia would be capable of producing this following work, a stunning denunciation of the futility of war.

 Vasiliy Vereshchagin: The Lost - Funeral Elegy for the Fallen

 Concluding this mini-survey of great Russian painting is the following by Vasily Perov, perhaps the single most atmospheric painting I have ever seen, depicting a suicide victim.

Vasily Perov: Found Drowned, also known as A Drowned Woman (1867)