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 […]
Beginning in 1912, the artist has been creating a whole cycle of portraits of the Russian merchants, whom he was well acquainted with since childhood, when his family was only renting an outbuilding in a merchant’s house. The first of the works in this cycle is considered to be the painting “The Merchants”, but perhaps […]
Many of Kustodiev’s paintings in their plots are associated with the natural calendar, with the eternal cycle of the seasons, each of which required stable types of seasonal village work, was accompanied by a certain order of church holidays, and once again encouraged to reproduce the prevailing folk customs. The artist painted landscapes in his […]
Kustodiev’s mature style was clearly manifested in his 1916 painting “Moscow Tavern”. It is known that the love of tea drinking has long been among the characteristic signs of Moscow life. Back in 1848, in one of his essays on Moscow life, Ivan Kokorev wrote: “Whoever knows Moscow firsthand, not by a cursory glance, will […]
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 […]
Maslenitsa is one of the central works of Boris Kustodiev’s entire work. He varied this image more than once, but the scope of the national holiday, a truly “wide” carnival – not just as its last days, but as the highest peak of fun – he best conveyed in the picture of 1916 and its […]