A. G. Venetsianov (1780 - 1847) - an artist of the Russian school, who studied under V.L. Borovikovsky and who received the title of academician, when in 1811 he completed the competition program - “Portrait of K.I. Golovachevsky. "
Brief information about the paintings
Initially, living in St. Petersburg, Alexey Venetsianov specialized in portraiture. It was a custom work, and "for yourself." These works have been known to us since 1801. For twenty years he was executed 18 portraits.
But, having married, leaving Petersburg and moving to the Tver province, the artist began to write genre scenes from peasant life. It was these works that brought the painter universal recognition. Its heyday belongs to 20-30 years of the 19th century. The most famous paintings were “Reapers,” “Sleeping Shepherdess,” and “Zaharka.” Alexey Venetsianov began to work, not imitating the masters whose work he saw in the Hermitage, and depicting life as he saw, and in the open air. This was a revolution in his work and innovation of that time.
“On arable land. Spring"
The picture depicts simple rural everyday life - a peasant woman harrows a plowed field. The day is clear and warm. The fields are spacious. The woman’s move is leisurely.
She goes barefoot, which has a sacred meaning. The earth is divinely fertile, you cannot step on it with boots, you must treat it with love, only then it will yield a crop. The young woman herself - a living personification of spring and fertility - looks with tenderness at her baby, playing with plain yellow and blue colors. The earthly and divine merge into a single whole. And it would seem, what a simple plot - on arable land, spring - took the master, and what a complex meaning laid in it.
“Cowgirl with a pipe”
In the Tver Regional Art Gallery is a work written on a tree - "Shepherd with a horn." A little boy running over the day in thought lies and rests.
The bare foot is smeared with earth. The tenderness of his age is compared with a young birch tree, near which he is located. In a modest kitty, food was at hand. Now, it seems, the bag was empty, and the boy with natural grace rests on it. His hands had not yet been coarsened or mutilated. What future awaits a child? You think about it while looking at him. He will repeat the path of his grandfathers and fathers, no more. And who knows what talent lies in him?
The Sleeping Cowgirl
This is an innovative canvas filled with different tones and therefore lively. The plot is simple. The teenager who had fallen asleep, leaned his back against a birch. Behind it flows a river, the banks of which are covered with soft grass. On the other side of the river is a girl walking through the water with a rocker on her shoulder. If you look closely, you can see a part of the back, apparently, of a fisherman in the left corner. And in front of us opened their expanses of meadows and fields. A long, warm summer day stretches slowly. This eternal Russia rises in the hills and copses in the distance. The landscape is merged with people. They, both people and nature, are natural, like life itself, because the artist worked in the open air, which was not accepted then.
Another portrait of children
Venetsianov’s picture “Here and Father’s Lunch!” conquers at first sight. In thought, two are sitting over an empty barrel - a boy of about five or six years old and his faithful friend - a furry dog looking intently into his face.
A barefoot little boy in a white shirt and a white dog are two bright spots in the picture. The whole background corresponds to the
sad mood of the child, who propped his face on his hand, he is dark. It is impossible not to sympathize with the grief of the remaining hungry, perhaps not the first time a couple. Children of peasants first appear in Russian paintings only at Venetsianov.
Threshing floor
You can not talk about the artist without mentioning the work created in 1821 and which became a new stage for him. A large, long room is depicted, designed to fold bread (it is poured in a slide in the center) and threshed. The canvas depicts the sitting, resting peasants and those who continue to work. As well as carts, horses. Everything holds a huge barn. It is illuminated in a very unusual way. In the foreground it’s not bright, in the center a stream of light penetrates through the window, and at the end of the barn through the open door bright light again flows from the street, which is also visible. The prospect is hard to build. With the help of light, which has already been said, and by reducing the figures and objects in the background. This contributes a lot to the floor. Very interesting are the figures of peasants who, sitting, leaned against logs of the threshing floor. The coloristic solution is also amazing - golden-brown, festive. This picture of Venetsianov was exhibited at the exhibition in 1824 and was very liked by Alexander I, who acquired it. The Academy accepted it coldly, since the topic was far from elevated.
"Morning of the landowner"
This picture of Venetsianov is a genre sketch depicting everyday life: early morning, the hostess in a home dress and a cap sits on a chair at the table. Furniture corresponds to that time, it is made of mahogany.
Light falls from the window from the back of the landowner, her face is not clearly visible, but her silhouette is clearly visible. Well lit floor and screen. A screen and a table divide the space of the canvas, allowing you to pay attention to three figures and linen, which, tied, lies on the floor. The room in which the flax is distributed is small, the interior behind the hostess’s back is completely immersed in the shade, deepening the space of the picture. The atmosphere is calm. Two peasant women listen to the instructions of their mistress and are held with dignity. Venetsianov's painting generalizes the everyday scene, typing it.
Reapers
Venetsianov wrote several paintings on the topic of harvest: “A Peasant Woman with Butterflies,” “On the Harvest,” and several more. Having developed this motif well, he built the composition of the new canvas. Venetsianov’s painting “Reapers” was spied on in life when the artist wandered through the fields with a sketchbook. Mother and son innocently admire the beauty of butterflies trustingly sitting on their hands.
The son, from behind, clung to his mother and did not take his eyes off the motley graceful beauties. Mother does not move so as not to frighten them away. The boy is a living copy of Zakharka, maybe this is it, too much is the portrait resemblance. Both figures stand close to the viewer. They are given in close-up. Mother tilted her head slightly to the little boy. On her face you can notice a slight fatigue and affection for the child. She was written and a sundress, and a white shirt, and a scarf on her head, and beads, and a thin ring - all noted, admiring this couple, the artist. And two sickles can be closed in a circle that frames the heroes.
Conclusion
In his village, the innovative artist created a school for capable serf peasant children. He wanted to redeem the most outstanding student by the name of Soroka, but the owner did not agree and decided to make him a gardener. As a result, the young artist hanged himself. This is the difficult situation our first singer of peasant life worked in. Moreover, the Academy of Arts did not approve of its activities - the landscape and plot of Venetsianov’s paintings were too “simple” and “artless”. The artist died at 67, unable to control the horses that carried him and defeated him to death. During his life he wrote 85 works, which are mainly in museums in Moscow and St. Petersburg.