Self: Canadian and Russian Landscape Painting (1860 – 1940)

Between 1860 and 1940, Russia and Canada had radically different cultural and artistic environments. Literature, theatre, music, ballet and the visual arts reached new heights in Russia at the turn of the twentieth century, due to enlightened patronage. In Canada, although there was some emerging activity in the 1860s, the development of the arts was more modest because artists were still marginal figures in a society that was essentially concerned with its economic growth.

Nonetheless, the painters of both countries were driven by the desire to represent the local landscape and to highlight its special characteristics. Their works reflected the importance of landscape in Russian and Canadian identity. Their modes of representation gradually cast off outside influences. The painters focused mainly on rural scenes yet cityscapes sometimes drew their attention, attesting to changing lifestyles and their subsequent effect on the architectural environment.

This "national" affirmation went through a variety of phases. In Russia, from the very first travelling exhibition of itinerant artists known as the Wanderers in 1871, artists asserted their intention to reject foreign painting conventions. Later, other painters would draw inspiration from Russian popular culture in order to arrive at a new form of art. In Canada, as early as the 1870s, the Luminist painters adopted a more American perspective on painting. At the end of the nineteenth century, some artists adapted Impressionist techniques to conditions specific to Canada. In the 1920s, the Group of Seven were taken with the uncharted wilderness, leading to a distinctive image of the Canadian landscape.

Throughout his life as a creator, Valentin Serov liked to paint landscapes; he presented the beauty of nature and his admiration of it. His infatuation with plein air painting, which was important to him in the 1880s, was expressed in A Pond which he painted at Domotkanovo in the Tver region, on the Derviz estate of his friend from the Academy of Arts. Domotkanovo played an important role in Serov’s life; it was there in fact in an absolutely calm state of mind that he created his best landscapes. By choosing for this study a very simple theme, a fragment of nature, the painter was able to render convincingly a deep impression of the complexity of nature. He shows a portion of the pond, its bank covered in alder trees; he shunned gaudy colours and for this canvas used a range of rich green and silver tones, succeeding in imparting to us his poetic perception of nature.

The exotic natural surroundings of the Crimea and the shores of the Black Sea are a favourite haunt of Russian landscape artists. The steppe extends from north to south, with the ribbon of Crimean mountains occupying the shore of the Black Sea. The inhabitants, descendants of many peoples who formerly lived in the peninsula, live a calm and sedentary life in their small villages, tucked away behind the luxuriant riverbank greenery. The village of Kokoz has often attracted the attention of Russian artists because of its picturesque geographical location in the mountains. Many of the studies that have been preserved bear witness to this. Unlike other painters, Veltz created a large canvas in the tradition of academic landscape painters; he underscores the epic character of nature, emphasizing the magnificence of autumn in the foothills of the Crimea. There is no inconsistency between the accuracy with which he depicts the tiniest details, and most importantly, the timelessness of the land and powerful mountains represented in this painting.

Misty Morning is one of Volkov’s best known works. It was shown for the first time at the ninth exhibition of the Itinerants’ Society of travelling exhibitions, and then became part of the Rumiantsev Museum’s collection, which is very well known in Russia. The painter has succeeded in realistically rendering the atmosphere at daybreak, when swirling mists surround the tree trunks and cover the earth in moisture, emphasizing the brownish-green and yellow hues. The vertical framing of the canvas and the stable and well-balanced composition strengthen the tranquil beauty of the scene chosen by the painter. Volkov’s treatment of the landscape shows a concern to accurately represent a complex natural phenomenon, as well as the distictive features of a particular location. There is no need to look for any complex emotions here: the painter is content to remain a somewhat detached observer, which is what gives the landscape its solemn tranquillity.

After Levitan’s death, his brother classified this painting as one of his studies. And yet an attentive viewer can see it to be a completely finished and accomplished work. Levitan creates the impression of currents of air and light swirling above the ground. Somewhat later, Nikolai Roerich would paint a similar scene, with an enormous cloud above the plain, but introducing a philosophical feeling and a symbolic treatment of form. Levitan used this theme as a model for the deep perception of nature and the laws that control the interaction of all its elements.

Borisov-Musatov painted this study in his home village. In it, can be found the rich cool green colours so typical of his plein air paintings. The artist makes us discover the poetry of everyday life in a provincial town: Saratov, on the banks of the Volga, is a sunny and windy place. Sun and wind were determining factors in Borisov-Musatov’s choice of location. A lively sky is covered with vaguely contoured clouds; a tree, about to lose its leaves, is bent by the wind; the diagonal line formed by the smooth rooftops of different colours, creates clear and lively rythms. The structure of this landscape, which shows no people, is not typical of the painter’s work; it is full of movement and rhythm.

Levitan is known as one of the most refined and incisive of landscape painters. The concept of landscape as emotion entered Russian painting with his work. He knew how to render the true beauty of nature in all the diversity of its changing states, while at the same time presenting the state of the human soul in its most subtle emotions through landscapes. This was a valuable aspect of the painter’s genius. Golden Autumn, a joyful painting, is rather like a farewell song to the final flowering of nature, with the unusual brightness of the colours, the sparkling gold of the birch trees, and the multicoloured earth. This landscape, which was executed brilliantly and with considerable mastery, is characterized by the complexity in composition of colours and the variable density of the paint, which is laid on in thick coloured strokes.