The exhibition of one painting "V.M. Maksimov (1844 - 1911)" The Old Man ". 1874" Automatic translate

On March 5, in the Kaluga Museum of Fine Arts (104 Lenin St., the main exposition), an exhibition of one painting, “V.M. Maximov (1844 - 1911) The Old Man. 1874. " To the 175th anniversary of the artist.

This year marks the 175th anniversary of the birth of the outstanding artist-traveler Vasily Maximovich Maximov (17 (29).01.1844 - 18.11 (01.12).1911). He entered the history of Russian art as the author of such wonderful paintings as “Grandmother’s Tales” (1867), “The Sorcerer’s Parish at the Peasant’s Wedding” (1875), “The Family Section” (1876), “Everything in the Past” (1889) and a number of others works that make up the “golden fund” of Russian art of the State Tretyakov Gallery.

The life of the Russian peasantry in post-reform Russia is the main theme of his work. Such an interest in public life is not accidental. The artist himself comes from a peasant family: he was born on January 17, 1844 in the village of Lopino, Novoladozhsky district of the St. Petersburg province in a family of state peasants. His parents, both father and mother were literate, which was a very rare occurrence in the life of the Russian countryside. Having lost his parents early, he studied at a monastery school, and was a novice of the Nikolaev Staroladozhsky monastery. The desire to do painting, prompted the young Vasily Maximov to leave the monastery. He leaves for Petersburg, where he studied and worked in the beginning in one and then in another icon-painting workshop. In parallel, he attended a drawing school at the Technological Institute, which allowed him to enter the Academy of Arts in 1863 as a volunteer. Here his comrades were I.E. Repin, V.D. Polenov, K.A. Savitsky. Vasily Maximov, like other students of the Academy of Fine Arts, formed on the revolutionary democratic ideas of the sixties, who affirmed the new aesthetics and civil purpose of art. Democratic views on the tasks of art forced the young artist to abandon the competition for a gold medal and a trip abroad. The main theme of his work was the reflection in the art of the life of the Russian people. It is about him I.E. Repin said that in the life of a peasant village there was no one who could compare with V.M. Maximov. The heyday of his work falls on the years 1860 - 1880, when his most famous works were created. In the following years of his life, due to illness and poverty, the artist did not work so fruitfully. He died at the end of 1911, leaving a memory of himself as one of the best genre artists.

Artistic heritage of V.M. Maximov is not only genre paintings, but also portraits, landscapes; His graphic works are known (drawings, etchings, engravings). But in the history of Russian art he remained, first of all, as a chronicler of peasant Russia. His works are kept in many Russian museums.

In the collection of the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts is a portrait of an old man painted by the artist in 1874, during the period of work on the creation of one of his best paintings, “The Sorcerer’s Coming to the Peasant Wedding” (1871 - 1875). In the course of work on this painting, which he painted in the village of Chernavino, St. Petersburg province, he repeatedly portrayed local peasants, just one of them is captured in this portrait. The simplicity and naturalness of the composition comes from the model itself. Posing for the artist, the old man thought about something of his own; he was internally immersed in himself, in his thoughts. Chiaroscuro highlights not only the face, but also the hands with which it rests on a stick. The image of an elderly peasant is equally typical and individual. In the portrait, the artist was able to combine the individual features of the model with the typical, inherent in the Russian peasantry of the XIX century, not only in the transfer of appearance, but also of spiritual and mental state. The portrait is painted in warm, restrained monochrome tones, built on a combination of brown and gray tones. This portrait of an old man can be put on a par with the peasant images of I. E. Repin, I. I. Kramskoy.

The portrait entered the museum in 1945 from the procurement fund of the Office for the Arts under the SNK of the RSFSR.

The exhibition runs until April 7th.