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Vassili SurikovVassili Surikov (1848—1916) was the first of the Wanderers to combine national ideals with an urge to find a new language in which to express those ideals. Born in Krasnoyarsk in Siberia, Surikov set out for Petersburg on horse-back in 1868 to join the Academy. He was a year on his journey, for on his way he made frequent stops in the ancient towns through which he passed. In particular Kazan and Nizhni-Novgorod impressed him, but it was Moscow that bowled him over. "Coming to Moscow, to that centre of national life, I immediately saw my way," he wrote later. Surikov's masterpiece, as it is generally considered, "The Boyarina Morozova" (1887), depicting the persecution of the "old believers" by the patriarch Nikon, is set in the streets of medieval Moscow. It is an enormous painting — both in size and scale it is in the nature of a wall-painting. The pictorial construction of this work reminds one of the great Italian monumental painters whose work Surikov so much admired — Michelangelo, Tintoretto, Titian and Veronese. It is full of movement— the fresh, solid colour glances from form to form, gesture carries on to gesture, until finally one's eye is arrested by the central figure of the Boyarina with her dramatic uplifted hand and pointing fingers. This dynamic quality had always been a fundamental characteristic of Russian painting, and in Surikov's work it re-emerges from the medieval traditions for the first time. With Surikov the peculiar colour range of Byzantine art is likewise revived — the rich browns, somber red and clear yellow. A decorative surface rhythm and strong horizontals are other characteristics common to Russian art, both ancient and modern, and likewise first recovered in the work of Surikov.
Date: 2015-01-02; view: 1529
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