In his portraits, Kustodiev, as a rule, abandoned the traditional use of a neutral background and replaced it with elements of the interior (or, later, landscape), which gives his works a touch of genre. Some of them turn into portraits-paintings. Everywhere there is an interest in the transmission of a light-air environment, an addiction to […]
In 1915, Kustodiev painted a portrait of Alexander Anisimov, later a prominent organizer of the restoration business, the author of studies on pre-Mongol painting and the icon of the Vladimir Mother of God, and at that time – a teacher at the Novgorod teachers’ seminary, passionate about Russian antiquity and icon painting. In the legacy […]
The painting “Fair” was painted by Boris Kustodiev in 1906 by order of the Expedition of Procurement of State Papers, which intended to publish a series of reproductions of modern paintings for the people, made in the spirit of popular prints. For Kustodiev, the order turned out to be a happy occasion, as it stimulated […]
In the fall of 1908, Boris Kustodiev worked in the village of Uspenskoye near Staraya Ladoga. Built in the 18th century, this estate then belonged to the patron of the arts Alexander Romanovich Tomilov, and the largest artists of Russian romanticism – Orest Kiprensky, Alexander Orlovsky, Ivan Aivazovsky and others – have visited it. Near […]
In 1803, Kiprensky was left at the Academy as a pensioner. Today we would call it graduate school. Two years later, he took part in the competition for a big gold medal, having completed the program “Dmitry Donskoy after defeating Mamai.” The painting “Dmitry Donskoy on the Kulikovo Field” depicts the moment when the news […]
In 1915, Kustodiev completed the final formation of his style with the painting “Beauty”. Here he revealed traditional tastes in an image colored at the same time with admiration, and eroticism, and irony, depicting not just a plump, but this time a particularly puffy woman. Half-sitting, reclining on the bed, she, like the Venus of […]