Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Konstantin Savitsky: Russian Genre-Painter, Critical Realism
Konstantin Savitsky: Russian Genre-Painter, Critical Realism
Konstantin Savitsky: Russian Genre-Painter, Critical Realism
Konstantin Savitsky
Biography of Russian Critical Realist Genre Painter.
MAIN A-Z INDEX - A-Z of ARTISTS
Save
http://www.visual-arts-cork.com/famous-artists/konstantin-savitsky.htm Page 1 of 2
Konstantin Savitsky: Russian Genre-Painter, Critical Realism 26/09/2023, 10:30
Graduate Artist
After graduating from the St Petersburg Academy in 1866, Savitsky spent two
years travelling in Europe. On his return home, along with other young artists
like Kramskoy, Surikov, and Vasily Perov, Savitsky helped to establish The
Association of Travelling Art Exhibitions (The Wanderers, or Itinerants) - a
progressive organization whose aim was to stage art shows around the country
of works which captured the lives of ordinary working people. See also:
Russian Painting (19th-Century).
One of the first pictures devoted to this subject was Savitsky's masterpiece
"Repairing the Railway" (1870). Of medium size, this figurative genre painting
is a panoramic study of workers docilely manhandling wheelbarrows of rocks
and earth next to the railroad, under the supervision of a solitary guard. The
work never seems to stop. Following this, Savitsky went into teaching, and
spent more than 20 years working in art schools in St Petersburg, Moscow, and
Penza.
Among other notable works by Savitsky is the genre painting Off to War (1888,
Russian Museum, St Petersburg), a huge canvas capturing the painful
separation of soldier and wife at the railway station. In addition, Savitsky was
involved in Ivan Shishkin's beautiful landscape Morning in the Pine Forest
(1886, Tretyakov Gallery), depicting a group of brown bears playing on a fallen
log. Although it was always known that Savitsky had painted the bears,
curators later discovered that the preliminary sketch was also a mixture of the
two artists. However, Savitsky later withdrew any claim to the work and it is
now attributed solely to Shishkin.
Position As an Artist
http://www.visual-arts-cork.com/famous-artists/konstantin-savitsky.htm Page 2 of 2