From 16 of March to 8 of June 2015 in the framework of the project "Our Collections" will be on display exhibition "Contemporaries of coryphaeuses" (Landscape of the Russian school of the second half of the nineteenth century from the collection of the National Art Museum of Belarus), which will be presented over 50 paintings.
Often our ideas about art are based on the knowledge of the great masters. It is enough, apparently, to name artists such as Ivan Aivazovsky, Alexey Savrasov, Levitan, and Ivan Shishkin, to characterize the Russian landscape of the second half of the nineteenth century. However, during this period, along with luminaries – artists who have stood the test of time and have taken a prominent place in history, the other landscape painters also worked. Without attention to their creativity assessment of the achievements of Russian landscape school would be incomplete.
Of great importance for the development of Russian landscape painting was the work of the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts. Despite the increase in 1860 – 1890 – ies. the value of realistic art and strengthen of criticism of the principles of academic education, academic as the artistic direction continued to exist. In some cases, landscape artists strictly followed the classic schemes of constructing the space, dividing the picture on the plans (Fedor Yasnovsky "View in Kuntsevo near Moscow", 1860; Nikolai Atryganev "View of the river Oster in Mogilev province", 1885 "Split oak", 1889), in some – strived to enrich these schemes with field observations (Lev Lagorio "Caucasus", 1869; Vladimir Orlovsky "From the Roman Campagna. The village Ariccia" 1872, "Noon", the second half of 1870 – beginning of 1880). Special handwriting had Mikhail Klodt. Creating monumental and balanced images of nature, equally close attention he paid to every detail ("Noon", the end of 1860 – beginning of 1870, "On the land", 1881).
There is no doubt that the circle of artists of the democratic trends in Russia in the second half of the nineteenth century was wide enough. Many of them were part of the Association of Traveling Art Exhibitions (ATAE), which in itself was a high estimation of their art. Among these landscape painters were Constantine Kryzhitsky, Vasily Perepletchikov, Ilya Ostroukhov. The last was highly appreciated by Ilya Repin, he said "every his painting made epoch in the landscape and caused a whole school of imitators."
However, the artistic heritage of a number of the exhibited artists is nonuniformly on its composition. At the same landscape painter, in one case we see the attraction to the cabin, and in the other – to the realism.
But however different directions in their search were artists of the Russian school, all of them, of course, are united by a high professional level, learned in the period of apprenticeship. Many of these masters became teachers of the Academy and were able to convey their own experience to the artists of the twentieth-century.
Exhibition curator – Alexei Horyak, head of department of Russian and foreign art.
