#07162 Viktor Borisov-Musatov (1870-1905)

Description of Victor Borisov Musatov’s painting "Flowers"

What a seemingly inconspicuous canvas, and expressing nothing. Just part of a table and a corner, and on some white tiles laid out flowers. And not just flowers, but inflorescences, that is, the very top, the stems removed. It is almost impossible to determine exactly which flowers.

The rose, the brightest spot, is noticeable. Then we can assume that cornflowers or sprigs of lilacs are lying there. But this is just an assumption.

The composition is amazingly constructed. The floor is given as a background, and it is as close as possible to us visually, then a corner of something brown, either a table or some cardboard, which lies on the floor. And it’s only on this brown that the flowers are resting.

Now it’s worth telling us a little bit about the author. The thing is that he entered the Russian school of painting as a brilliant artist, with only a few dozen canvases in his luggage. Bright canvases, genre and simply landscape, there are also portraits. But all this was done under very sad circumstances - the artist from the age of three was not healthy and ugly. He was hunchbacked.

But that didn’t stop him from studying at art schools and academies. And even studied at one of the art studios in Paris. He painted magnificently, so many people thought. His paintings are now almost all in the Tretyakov Gallery. But the artist himself was never a resident of the capital, he mainly lived in Saratov, and the end of his life was spent in Podolsk or Tarusa.

Tarusa was his last refuge. The artist was only thirty-five years old when he was gone. It’s a paltry little and, unfortunately, he did not have time to fully demonstrate his talent. But maybe it’s good that such a talented man left early. He probably would not have been able to survive all those events that just started in 1905. After all, we know how vulnerable such people can be. He certainly could not have survived the revolution.