The artist Lukian Popov was born in 1783 to a poor peasant family near Orenburg. It was there that he started learning to paint and where he returned, having graduated from the Imperial Academy of Arts in St. Petersburg, and where he continued to pursue domestic genre painting. The canvas The Groom, 1904, is one of such paintings.
The Groom
Creation period
1904
Dimensions
54x80 cm
Technique
Oil on canvas
Collection
Exhibition
2
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Lukian Popov
The Groom
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The artist depicted a scene of a marriage proposal. It is believed that the artist painted the modest settings of his own home in Orenburg.
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On the right are the bride and the groom. The woman in the centre stands slightly off to the side by the window but follows the conversation with interest. Another woman is at the piano, half-turned and also listening into the dialogue. She was modelled on the artist’s wife, Vera Popova, a peasant woman.
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Meadows flooded, 1908
The canvas’s composition is built on colours: the bride’s bright red blouse is counterbalanced by the woman’s figure in white and by the pink blouse of the woman at the piano. The artist is scanty on secondary details in his usual manner.
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He has focused the viewer’s attention on the main scene and only the characters’ faces and hands are painted in detail.
Popov was also well known as a painter critic: he often depicted the acute social problems or personal tragedies of his characters.
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Resettlers. Thunderstorm, 1900s
In his early 20th century paintings Resettlers in Winter, Resettlers in Summer and ‘Resettlers.Thunderstorm’ he showed the hardship of peasants who for different reasons were forced to migrate.
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With red light, 1910s
In his later canvases such as Meadows flooded and With Red Light the artist reflected on the growing social tensions during the reactionary times in the wake of the 1905 Russian revolution. The Grief shows the tragedy of a young woman who has recently lost her husband.
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The Grief, late 1890s - early 1900s
Popov’s choice of populist subjects was not left unnoticed by the famous Peredvizhniki group: as early as in 1900 the painter’s works featured at the Peredvizhniki exhibitions, and in 1903 the artist became a member of the group. Lukian Popov continued to support narodniki views until his early death in in 1914.
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Orenburg Regional Museum of Fine Arts
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The Groom
Creation period
1904
Dimensions
54x80 cm
Technique
Oil on canvas
Collection
Exhibition
2
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