Konstantin Korovin is rightfully considered one of the most cheerful Russian painters. Lightness, impulsiveness, inconstancy - that is what contemporaries singled out in the human and creative guise of this artist. He expressed his motto as follows: ‘… I write for those who know how to enjoy the sun, the endless variety of colors, shapes, who never cease to be amazed at the ever-changing charms of light and shadow’.
It is not surprising that the master became the brightest representative of Russian impressionism, the characteristic features of which were the multicolored wealth of nature and the immediacy of the expression of life in its momentary state. In the free breath of painting, the diversity of the colorful palette, the artistry of perception of the world, Korovin had no equal among his contemporaries.
His generous coloristic gift brilliantly manifested in easel work and monumental and decorative painting, commercial art and theatrical decoration. However, the main place in the history of Russian art was provided for him by an open-air landscape sketch, which the artist painted right away in one session, fearing to lose the freshness of the first impression and, at the same time, enjoying complete freedom of improvisation on canvas. An etude is the shortest way for an artist to express his emotional experience of nature. Korovin saw in it an independent and self-valuable form of knowledge of nature.
The canvas ‘Gurzuf’ was created in 1915 at the cottage of Feodor Chaliapin; their friendship began while working for the Moscow Private Russian Opera and went through their whole life.
We look at a seaside city, a piece of nature, as if accidentally snatched from the stream of life. This is exactly the rejoicing and sparkling world, which attracted the painter so much. With quick strokes of the brush, wide energetic dabs, Korovin paints a sea panorama spread out in front of him. The figures of people at the parapet of the embankment almost completely dissolve in the landscape, turning into bright white, red, yellow picturesque spots. A whole arsenal of the artist’s impressionist techniques is present here: fragmentary composition, workshop transmission of a light-air environment, the dynamics of a vibrating brushstroke, and the mobility of the relief texture of the painted surface.
It is not surprising that the master became the brightest representative of Russian impressionism, the characteristic features of which were the multicolored wealth of nature and the immediacy of the expression of life in its momentary state. In the free breath of painting, the diversity of the colorful palette, the artistry of perception of the world, Korovin had no equal among his contemporaries.
His generous coloristic gift brilliantly manifested in easel work and monumental and decorative painting, commercial art and theatrical decoration. However, the main place in the history of Russian art was provided for him by an open-air landscape sketch, which the artist painted right away in one session, fearing to lose the freshness of the first impression and, at the same time, enjoying complete freedom of improvisation on canvas. An etude is the shortest way for an artist to express his emotional experience of nature. Korovin saw in it an independent and self-valuable form of knowledge of nature.
The canvas ‘Gurzuf’ was created in 1915 at the cottage of Feodor Chaliapin; their friendship began while working for the Moscow Private Russian Opera and went through their whole life.
We look at a seaside city, a piece of nature, as if accidentally snatched from the stream of life. This is exactly the rejoicing and sparkling world, which attracted the painter so much. With quick strokes of the brush, wide energetic dabs, Korovin paints a sea panorama spread out in front of him. The figures of people at the parapet of the embankment almost completely dissolve in the landscape, turning into bright white, red, yellow picturesque spots. A whole arsenal of the artist’s impressionist techniques is present here: fragmentary composition, workshop transmission of a light-air environment, the dynamics of a vibrating brushstroke, and the mobility of the relief texture of the painted surface.
