Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow _ Picture Gallery, The Masterpieces (2)

State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

Picture Gallery, The Masterpieces

(2)

ANTROPOV, Aleksey PetrovichPortrait of Peter III1762oil on canvas, 250 x 179State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

ANTROPOV, Aleksey PetrovichPortrait of Peter III (detail)1762oil on canvas, 250 x 179State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

SURIKOV, Vasily Ivanovich Boyarina Morozova1887oil on canvas, 304 x 587,5State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

SURIKOV, Vasily Ivanovich Boyarina Morozova (detail)1887oil on canvas, 304 x 587,5State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

KOROVIN, Konstantin AlekseyevichA Cafe in ParisLate 1890sOil on canvas, 52,5 x 43,5State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

KOROVIN, Konstantin AlekseyevichA Cafe in Paris (detail)Late 1890sOil on canvas, 52,5 x 43,5State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

PETROV-VODKIN, KuzmaBathing of the Red Horse1912Oil on canvas.160 x 186 cm. The Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

PETROV-VODKIN, KuzmaBathing of the Red Horse (detail)1912Oil on canvas.160 x 186 cm. The Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

BRYULLOV, Karl PavlovichBathsheba1832Oil on canvas, 173 x 126 cmState Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

BRYULLOV, Karl PavlovichBathsheba (detail)1832Oil on canvas, 173 x 126 cmState Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

VASNETSOV, Viktor Mikhaylovich Heroes (Bogatyri)1898oil on canvas, 295,3 х 446State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

VASNETSOV, Viktor Mikhaylovich Heroes (Bogatyri) (detail)1898oil on canvas, 295,3 х 446State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

VERESHCHAGIN, Vasily VasilyevichThe Apotheosis of War1871Oil on canvas, 127 x 197 cmState Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

VERESHCHAGIN, Vasily VasilyevichThe Apotheosis of War (detail)1871Oil on canvas, 127 x 197 cmState Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

RUBLEV, Andrey Holy Trinity (Troitsa)1425–1427Wood, tempera, 141.5 x 114 State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

RUBLEV, Andrey Holy Trinity (Troitsa) (detail)1425–1427Wood, tempera, 141.5 x 114 State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

UNKNOWN icon painter, mid-16th century "Blessed Be the Host of the King of Heaven…"Mid-16th centuryTempera on wood, 143,5 х 395,5Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

UNKNOWN icon painter, mid-16th century "Blessed Be the Host of the King of Heaven…"Mid-16th century (detail)Tempera on wood, 143,5 х 395,5Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow_Gallery, The Masterpieces (2)

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UNKNOWN icon painter, mid-16th century "Blessed Be the Host of the King of Heaven…"

Mid-16th century

The icon was painted for the Assumption Cathedral in the Moscow Kremlin, where it stood in a special case near the tsar’s pew. Its title comes from the liturgical verse of the Octoechos which is devoted to the martyrs. The icon’s subject evokes the Octoechos and other liturgical books extolling the martyrs who sacrificed their lives for true faith and were rewarded with

Heavenly bliss.

There is also a link to actual historical events, and most experts believe the panel commemorates the Russian conquest of Kazan in 1551. Headed by the Archangel Michael on a winged horse, warriors are marching in three columns from the burning city (apparently, Kazan) towards the Heavenly city (Heavenly Jerusalem) which is standing on a hill, crowned by a tent.

The victors are met by Virgin Mary with the infant Christ and soaring angels with halos. On the eve of the Kazan campaign the Metropolitan Makary in his epistle to Sviyazhsk promised the forgiveness of sins to all participants of the expedition and a martyr’s glory to all killed for the sake of true faith. In this respect the warriors in the middle row (depicted without nimbuses)

can be seen as the conquerors of Kazan on their return to Moscow.

The warriors with nimbi, then, are not only the martyrs revered by the Orthodox Church, but also the fallen participants of the campaign, whose sacrifice was considered equal to that of the ancient martyrs. According to the icon’s author, they constitute a single Heavenly host. Judging by many historical records, Tsar Ivan the Terrible’s Kazan campaign was seen by

contemporaries not so much as a military or political undertaking, but rather as the struggle for the spreading of the Orthodox faith. Not surprisingly, this icon shows amid the host, St Constantine the Great in imperial robes, holding a cross.

Perhaps the image of Constantine stands as a symbol for Ivan the Terrible himself, regarded as the heir to his cause. The theme of the triumph of the Christian faith is also stressed by the presence here of the first ever Russian saints, Vladimir, Boris and Gleb (they appear almost directly behind Constantine). The multi-figure narrative composition and the unusual shape of the icon have to do with the fact that this is not so much an icon, but a historical allegory praising the victorious Orthodox tsardom and its forces, using traditional iconographic means.

SURIKOV, Vasily Ivanovich Boyarina Morozova

Feodosia Prokopievna Morozova (?–1675), was a supporter of the spiritual leader of the old faith, archpriest Avvakum. Circa 1670 she was secretly tonsured as a nun; in 1671 she was arrested and in 1673 she was sent to the Pafnutief-Borovsky convent where she was starved to death in an earthen prison. The painting is devoted to the Church Schism of the

17th century.

The Schism arose as a result of reforms by Patriarch Nikon to unify the rites and establish uniformity in the church service. The artist has depicted an episode when Boyarina Morozova is taken around Moscow to her place of confinement. In the centre is Morozova herself, her hand thrown up, blessing the crowd in the two-fingered manner of the Old

Believers. The black spot of her clothing sounds the tragic dominant note of the painting.

The crowd has divided. To the left, they are mocking the boyarina; to the right, they sympathize with her. Alongside Morozova is her sister Evdokia Urusova, who shared the fate of the Schismatics.

In the distance we see a wanderer whose face bears portrait features of the artist. The figure of the wanderer has been drawn under an icon of Our Lady Glykophilousa (Umilenie). It was said of Surikov that in the painting he recreated “genuine history, as if he had been a witness to the events.”

KOROVIN, Konstantin AlekseyevichA Cafe in Paris

In the second half of 1890-s Korovin creates a series of pictures which have embodied Paris cafes and panoramas of Paris Boulevards. These works demonstrate the progressive development of impressionist painting principles, their original refraction in the master’s creative work.

Korovin is keen on combining light and air effects. He develops a system of a fine tone gradation which would imitate the damp air or distant planes melting in a haze. Light penetrates into the contours of subjects, almost dissolving them; sun rays pierce the trees, creating light halos around them; gentle blue and pink tints combined with a bright red

spot of umbrella, whose colour is perceived as an addition to the green.

Turquoise haze of the picture space softens this contrast. The bright spot echoes in dabs of a red paint scattered around. With various movements of a brush Korovin tactfully reflects condensation and unsteadiness of atmosphere. Here and there are seen bunches of not stirred paint, and sometimes the contours of subjects are scratched with a brush

handle.

PETROV-VODKIN, KuzmaBathing of the Red Horse

This painting became for contemporaries a symbol of the coming social changes. It conveys the “spirit of the times.” “I had three versions,” the artist later recollected. “In the process of working I set out more and more demands from the purely painterly side which would even out the form and content, the things which would give the painting social importance.”

The artist managed to combine the traditions of Russian icons, early Italian frescoes and neo-Classical traditions.

The cold colours of the water and the rounded lines of the shore literally “propel” the wonderful “fire-like” horse forward and it seems that he is no longer in the painting but here just in front of it.

The art researcher D.V. Sarabyanov, analysed this painting and wrote the following: “The symbol is …very capacious. It has something of Blok’s “mare of the steppes” in whose image was formed….the past of Russia, its difficult present and that infinite, imperishable thing that remains forever.”

BRYULLOV, Karl PavlovichBathsheba

The subject is taken from the 2nd Book of Kings in the Old Testament (11: 2–3). Bathsheba was the wife of the military commander Uriah, who was in the service of King David. David saw Bathsheba when she was bathing and ordered that Uriah be sent to a near certain death, after which he took Bathsheba into his palace. As punishment for this sin,

David’s first-born died on his seventh day. Bryullov was interested not so much in the subject itself as in ancient oriental culture and its spicy beauty.

The motif of a naked body illuminated by the sun allowed the artist to show off his decorative gift. The face of the heroine remains in the shade, but her silhouette is partly lit, which creates the felling of living flesh.

Coloured highlights are placed here and there on the canvas. The marble-like whiteness of her skin contrasts with the figure of the black servant woman who brings into the painting a light hint of eroticism.

VASNETSOV, Viktor Mikhaylovich Heroes (Bogatyri)

Having revived the images of Old Russia's legendary defenders, mighty in their spiritual power, such as Ilya Muromets, Dobrynya Nikitich and Alyosha Popovich, Vasnetsov attempted at the turn of the 20th century to bridge the heroic past of the Russian people and its great future.

Concrete as the images might be, the heroes are seen as a mythical epitome of the creative power of the Russian land. Mighty figures on horseback rise like mountains or colossal trees. The hooves of the heroes's horses tread on fragile young growth of fir and pine trees: a metaphor for intergenerational continuity. By turning to a pictoral hyperbole, Vasnetsov imparts

to his heroes true qualities of Russian nature.

Ilya Muromets epitomizes solidity, wise deliberate ways and tapping of experience and traditions of the people. Proud fighting spirit and desire to defend the motherland are embodied in Dobrynya Nikitich. And the image of Alyosha Popovich reflects a poetical, contemplative streak of the Russian soul, sensitivity to all manifestations of beaut

VERESHCHAGIN, Vasily VasilyevichThe Apotheosis of War

Under the influence of the military action in Turkestan, which shocked eyewitnesses by its cruelty, Vereshchagin did a series of paintings entitled The Barbarians. The key place in the series in terms of its intellectual freight was the painting The Apotheosis of War. The viewer beholds a dead wasteland baked by the sun with stunted trees. In the distance there is a

plundered city. In the centre, a pyramid of human skulls. Such were the “monuments” which the 14th-15th century conqueror Tamerlane (Timur) left after himself.

Originally the artist intended to name the painting The Triumph of Tamerlane, however he preferred to give it a larger scale significance and wrote on the frame The Apotheosis of War, adding “This is dedicated to all great conquerors, past, present and future.”

RUBLEV, Andrey Holy Trinity (Troitsa)

The icon of the «Holy Trinity» is the most famous work of the brilliant Russian artist Andrei Rublev. According to the testimony of one of the 17th century sources, it was painted «in praise of Sergii Radonezhsky» at the order of his pupil and successor abbot Nikon. At the basis of the iconography is the Biblical tale (Book of Genesis, XVIII) of the appearance to saint

Abraham of God in the form of three angels.

Abraham and his wife Sarah entertained the three angels in the shade of an oak when Abraham understood that the angels were the embodiment of God in three faces. Avoiding details which were customary in the subject of the «Hospitality of Abraham», Andrei Rublev achieved extraordinary symbolic profundity in his work. In Rublev’s icon all attention is

concentrated on the three angels and their silent exchange. They are depicted as seated around an altar in the center of which there is a chalice of the Eucharist with the head of a sacrificial calf which symbolises the lamb of the New Testament, i.e., Christ.

The left and centre angels bless the chalice. God the Father blesses God the Son for death on the cross in the name of love for people. God the Holy Spirit (the right angel) is present here to provide comfort, confirming the high logic of sacrificial, all-forgiving love. The content of the «Holy Trinity» is ambiguous. The monument is multi-faceted in its themes. Firstly, it

embodies the idea of the triune Divinity. During the times of Sergii Radonezhsky and Andrei Rublev, the subject of the Trinity was understood as a symbol of spiritual unity, mutual love, the world and readiness to sacrifice oneself.

ANTROPOV, Aleksey PetrovichPortrait of Peter III

Peter III (Peter Fedorovich; Karl Peter Ulrich; 1728–1762), was a nephew of Empress Elizaveta Petrovna, the son of her sister Anna Petrovna and Karl Friedrich, duke of Holstein-Gottorp. He was the direct grandson of Peter the Great. He ruled Russia as Emperor from 1761. In 1762 he was dethroned by his wife, the future Empress Catherine the Great. Peter III is presented

in an energetic pose with leg extended as during a ceremonial march.

The artist has accurately and conscientiously conveyed all the peculiarities of the typical appearance of his model, as the high-born client himself insisted. The figure of the Emperor is expressive in all its irregularity. It is depicted in an imposing palace interior. The painting contains all the attributes of tsarist authority – the crown, scepter, orb, ermine mantle thrown

over the throne. In the Emperor’s hand is a marshal’s staff and in the distance we see a scene of battle, alluding to the military “genius” of the hero of the portrait.

Thickly applied paint, the combination of locally rich greens and reds together with gold, all give a sense of magnificence and festiveness that was required for a formal dress portrait.

Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow _ Picture Gallery, The Masterpieces (2)

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