This painting is the work of the Soviet and Russian painter, people’s artist of the Russian Federation Nikolai Alexandrovich Sysoev. With an apartment and workshop on Verkhnyaya Maslovka in Moscow, Sysoev spent most of his time living and working in the village of Maly Gorodok in the reserve area of the Academic Dacha Art Centre in the Tver Region.
Sysoev’s painting ‘Rustic interior’ shows the inside of his country house, which he acquired after working at the Repin Art Centre. It is a typical village log house and clean room with no frills. The floor and the bench are covered with colored homespun rugs; a table with a white tablecloth is adorned with a bouquet of lilacs. It is clearly the month of May. Even Sysoev’s execution of a theme as simple as the inside of a home is unique: the picture radiates warmth, sincerity, the artist’s joyful mood; it is peaceful and harmonious. The artist often makes use of the interior of this house when painting his subject-themed canvases, such as in the painting ‘Wedding preparations’.
Nikolai Sysoev arrived at the Academic Dacha in 1948 with his wife Nina Skorubskaya, who was also an artist. The Academy, as the artist’s village is still sometimes called, was originally created as a place for artists to come to create. Founded in 1884 for summer practice by students of the Imperial Academy of Arts, it continued to function in Soviet times as the creative base of the Union of Artists of Russia. Sysoev lived there on a nearly permanent basis and created many subject-themed paintings about Lenin and the work and life of the Soviet collective farm peasantry.
Sysoev’s painting ‘Rustic interior’ shows the inside of his country house, which he acquired after working at the Repin Art Centre. It is a typical village log house and clean room with no frills. The floor and the bench are covered with colored homespun rugs; a table with a white tablecloth is adorned with a bouquet of lilacs. It is clearly the month of May. Even Sysoev’s execution of a theme as simple as the inside of a home is unique: the picture radiates warmth, sincerity, the artist’s joyful mood; it is peaceful and harmonious. The artist often makes use of the interior of this house when painting his subject-themed canvases, such as in the painting ‘Wedding preparations’.
Nikolai Sysoev arrived at the Academic Dacha in 1948 with his wife Nina Skorubskaya, who was also an artist. The Academy, as the artist’s village is still sometimes called, was originally created as a place for artists to come to create. Founded in 1884 for summer practice by students of the Imperial Academy of Arts, it continued to function in Soviet times as the creative base of the Union of Artists of Russia. Sysoev lived there on a nearly permanent basis and created many subject-themed paintings about Lenin and the work and life of the Soviet collective farm peasantry.
