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.

From 1920 to 1922, Lentulov lived in Sergiev Posad, not far from Moscow, near the Lavra of Trinity-St. Sergius, the celebrated monastery founded in the fourteenth century by St. Sergius of Radonezh. During this period, the artist painted several canvasses based on technical concepts developed by Cézanne. Landscape With Dry Trees, Sergiev Posad is considered one of the most characteristic works of this series: the composition of the painting appears to result from an accurate calculation of proportions, with the architecture appearing to match geometric principles and the brightly coloured walls looking as if they are striped with the vertical lines of bare trees parallel to the surface of the canvas. Everything follows a unifying synthesis. The real beauty of nature thus becomes the beauty of art.

Despite the simplicity of its subject and the rather intimate nature of it, Krymov’s By the Mill is one of the most sublime and majestic representations of nature in Russia. The faded grey roofs of wooden buildings, the silver surface of a river and the delicate contours of a dam become organically incorporated into the solemn “architecture” of the summer. In this architecture, the rounded contours of intensely green, dense and heavy foliage go hand in hand with the clouds floating in the sky. Krymov’s emotional and highly personal perception of his country’s landscapes, combined with his great attention to even the smallest details and his very keen sense of colour, are combined with an almost epic vision of nature that is characteristic of classical European landscapes of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

Contemporaries of Sofronova compared her Moscow landscapes to the works of Albert Marquet. Her paintings combine a lyrical perception of the city with a deliberately careless and sometimes coarse style and execution. The contrasts between the bright and dark colours accentuate the intense and dynamic nature of the composition, in which inanimate objects—the bridge, the streetcar and the dock—seem to be almost alive.

Mavrina’s work is typified by its highly pronounced decorative aspects, its very keen and direct perception of the world, its entertaining and mocking gaiety, and the artist’s mastery of technique. Olga Gildebrandt, who, like Mavrina, was a member of the Group of Thirteen, said of Mavrina: “Her Moscow landscapes—whether grey or brightly coloured—are always joyful, as if they were having fun. They are amusing in themselves.” Everything in A Street appears to be alive and animated: the multicoloured houses, the somewhat distorted and grotesque cars, the streetcars, the horses and carriages, all appear to be wriggling together, as are the small bay horse and the awkward and colourful people.

Plekhanov transformed the simple theme of winter in a Russian village into a poetic painting. The landscape is noteworthy for its diversity: the hills with their bare lacework trees, the snow-covered steep narrow valleys, the dark walls of the isbas (chalets), are all brought to life by the graceful silhouette of a skier and the presence of birds. The painting depicts a silent, peaceful and harmonious world of remarkable depth. The artist used simple but accurate techniques in composing the work, creating an impression of depth through skillful perspective and a most unusual alternation of foreground and background pictorial areas. In his own way, with no trace of rhetoric, the painter shows us the singular majesty and power of space in this remote province. The restrained harmony of the colours, with tones of grey, pearl, dark green and black predominating, is reminiscent of plein air painting, and renders the emotion of a dull day, along with the specific feelings of that day, hinting of intimacy and inner strength. Plekhanov’s distinctive style synthesizes the heritage of popular imagery, the traditional folk vision of landscape—with its naiveté and its penchant for the ornamental—and a formal structure worthy of a master.

Beginning in the mid 1930s, Pimenov painted a series of canvasses about Moscow, and of these, A New Moscow became particularly famous. The painting depicts one of the favourite areas of Central Moscow: Sverdlov Square (now known as Teatralnaia Square, or theatre square). By painting the canvas as if it were a snapshot, Pimenov focuses on the silhouette of a woman driving a car. By showing the woman from behind, the artist is inviting the viewer into the canvas and suggesting that we can discover early morning Moscow through her eyes. The play of colours is characterized by a large number of hues and tones, as well as very dynamic brush strokes that manage to render the vibrations of the air and light. In the composition of the painting, the Impressionist technique creates a feeling of lightness and elegance. In the 1930s, few women in the Soviet Union drove cars; the work was interpreted by Pimenov’s contemporaries as a symbol not only of the new Moscow, but of the new lifestyle.

In A Laid Table By the Water, Larionov’s still life against a landscape background, the objects in the foreground interact with space on several levels opening up behind them. But what is probably most charming about this work is the manner in which the artist shapes or “paints” onto the surface of a coarse canvas small fuzzy silhouettes of bathers, a parasol, dogs, crockery, fruit, feather-like leaves that appear to provide a decorative addition to the composition, along with a boat that closes the upper portion of the canvas. All of this creates a kind of unique and permeable curtain pierced by internal light. This pictorial structure clearly has parallels with the canvasses of Pierre Bonnard.

Vitold Byalynitsky-Birulya was a member of the Itinerants’ Society of travelling exhibitions. His mastery of painting and his finely-honed and poetic perception of nature earned him considerable fame. The calm composition of his landscapes was the main feature of his work. Byalynitsky-Birulya liked to concentrate on details in the foreground, attracting attention by making viewers aware of the beauty of withering leaves or granular melting snow. The discreet combination of colours, the innovative composition showing an observer looking closely at the ground, and the highlighting of certain details, like the tiny faded flowers, create an impression of autumn languor. The feeling of solitude elicited by the landscape brings to mind the verses of Russian poets and the melodies of Russian love songs.