2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25
He lived only 48 years, filled with constant intense creative work and containing a lot. Vasily Perov is the most prominent representative of the Moscow painting school of the 19th century. He was one of the founders of the legendary Association of Traveling Art Exhibitions.
His work has several distinct periods, one of which belongs to the masterpiece of genre painting - the painting "Fisherman".
From the people and for the people
An illegitimate son of a bureaucrat, he even received a surname after the name of his godfather - Vasiliev, and a playful nickname, which later became a surname, came from a deacon who taught him to read and write. The boy struck him with his calligraphy ability. Vasily Perov knew the life of a simple person in all its manifestations - all its many hardships and small joys. To express them with all the power of the talent given by nature - he saw this as his main task.
The first known genre paintings of the young artist, written by him after 1860 (in the last year and immediately after graduating from the Academy of Arts), contained a critical or satirical assessmentsome phenomena of Russian life. For example, he denounces hypocrisy, characteristic of a part of the Russian clergy, in the famous painting Tea Party in Mytishchi (1862).
Later, Vasily Perov thickens the general psychological tone of his paintings, in plots dedicated to the most defenseless part of the people, accusatory or tragic notes clearly sound. A striking example is the famous "Troika", written in 1866.
Quiet Passions
At the next stage of life and work, Vasily Perov again changes the nature of his view, aimed at human life. He becomes more attentive and sensitive, able to see finer details. At this time, his famous, including writer's, portraits appear, and genre paintings are colored not by satire, but by good humor or light irony.
A number of paintings appear, traditionally combined into a single cycle, conditionally called "Quiet passions". It includes the super-popular The Hunters at Rest (1871), The Birdman, written in 1870, The Dovecote (1874), and The Botanist (1874). Each of them tells about the simple and ordinary hobbies of an ordinary person.
These hobbies are different. People of different character and origin inhabit Perov's paintings. But there is one thing in common: these canvases do not tell about actions accompanied by the expression of dramatic feelings - condemnation, pity or sympathy. The heroes of the paintings about “quiet passions” most often cause a smile full of humor or good irony. No less valuablethe feeling that unites these canvases is a feeling of unity with nature. With his pictorial skill, Perov emphasizes the enduring significance of these concepts. One of the main things that Vasily Perov wrote on this topic is The Fisherman (1871), which was also presented at the World Exhibition in Vienna in 1873.
Peace stage
On a rectangular canvas 91 cm high and 68 cm wide, the artist depicts a very peaceful scene. These are not the passionately accusatory, sharply social canvases that Vasily Perov became known to the enlightened Russian public. The painting "Fisherman" tells about human passions of a different kind. By all indications, this fisherman came to the river for his own pleasure, and not to get food, and he does not look like a person in dire need.
Judging by the attention with which the artist examines his hero, his fishing equipment, the surrounding landscape, it becomes clear that he considers such filling of human life no less important than the historical exploits of great heroes, or events that are global dramas and tragedies.
Main character
All the viewer's attention is drawn to the central character of the picture, which occupies the main space of the canvas. Then you can not even remember how many people are in the picture of Vasily Perov. In the background, a second fisherman is sitting, busy with some important business of adjusting his equipment, looking like a harmonious part of a quiet early cool morning on a small reservoir.
The skill of the artist in transmissionthe psychology of the moment is impressive. The picture of Vasily Perov is a rich and fascinating story about a short moment that has absorbed a lot.
He is truly engrossed, staring at the bobber intently, already stooping slightly, putting his hands on his knees and leaning forward, ready to instantly grab the bait to hook the prey. The surface of the water near the shore is calm, like a mirror. Apparently, the bobber had just swung from the bite, and an experienced angler noticed the first waves diverging from it…
Detail accuracy
It is not known whether Vasily Perov himself was fond of fishing. The painting "Fisherman" contains an entourage that speaks volumes. Before us is not a novice in this matter. He carefully prepared for the process. He has something to sit on, something to hide from the weather, something to eat. His rods are not just cut branches. They have special metal joints. At the ready of a net - if there is a particularly large prey, and at the feet - a special fishing rod equipped with silver bells. There is no doubt - this is a professional!
One can only admire the skill with which the foreground of the picture is written. Perov appears as a painter who knows no difficulty in conveying the play of morning light on a clay jug, on boots polished to a shine, or on a metal can with bait, and the accuracy of the details is worthy of a textbook on the history of fishing!
Man is part of nature
In the works of the earlier stages of creativity, Perov uses the natural environment as a means of forcingdramatic feeling, and in "Fisherman" a person dissolves in the natural environment, being an integral part of it.
The best bite is at dawn! The first rays illuminated the top of the tree in the background, and the whole sky is already filled with milky light, but the remains of the night still lie by the water, dissolving into the coming day along with the invigorating coolness…
Hours spent fishing are not included in the term of life - isn't that what Vasily Perov wrote his picture about? "The Fisherman" is a picture that endows the viewer with a bright, serene mood, so rarely seen in Russian classical painting of the 19th century.
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