Nikolai Yaroshenko painted the picture The Blind in 1879. The artist belonged to the Society for Traveling Art Exhibitions whose members, called the Itinerants, preferred genre painting. Characters in Yaroshenko’s tableaus were people of no importance: peasants, workers, revolutionary-minded students, and convicts. The canvas The Blind was unveiled to the public for the first time at the 7th exhibition of the Itinerants.
The Blind
Creation period
1879
Dimensions
95x140 cm
95×140 cm
95×140 cm
Technique
Оil on canvas
Collection
Exhibition
10
Open in app#4
Nikolai Yaroshenko
The Blind
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#5
Art critic Vladimir Stasov wrote about this picture:
“This time, Mr. Yaroshenko is completely different from what he was at the previous exhibition […]. Today, away from town, away from a stuffy and damp prison, he is taking a stroll in broad fields, in the golden sunlight. Kiev lies at a distance, with its glistening onion-shaped domes of churches, and from there, from the city, black paths, still covered with cool shadows, are winding down the hill like snakes. The edges of the clouds, all faraway reaches on the horizon, fields in multiple places, grass-tops are covered with bright gold. It is a wonderful day, with a clear and motionless air. And in the middle of this framework of light and warmth, a motley crew of “the blind” is walking from town along those paths’.
#6
The center of the composition is a file of blind beggars who are trudging along the Dnieper bank. They are walking from a church service at the Kyiv Caves Lavra, which is visible in the background. All the beggars in the picture look very much alike. There are no striking portraits here. The artist used warm hues and a pastel-like color pattern. There are no intense tones or accents in this painting. Even the clear sky that reflects the transparent waters of the river is painted in pale gray. The Dnieper bank is overgrown with green grass. In many places, it has faded under a bright summer sunshine.
#7
Nikolai Yaroshenko was born in 1846 in Poltava, Ukraine, to a military family. When he was only nine, the future artist became a student at a cadet corps, and after graduation he enrolled to the infantry academy. His gift for drawing manifested itself at an early age, but his parents would not hear of an artistic career. Notwithstanding his relatives’ protestations, Nikolai Yaroshenko enrolled to the Imperial Academy of Arts in 1867, and graduated magna cum laude.
During his college years, he made friends with the Itinerants and the editorial board of the Annals of the Fatherland magazine. In 1878, Nikolai Yaroshenko joined the Society for Traveling Art Exhibitions with his picture The Fireman, which won him public acclaim. It was the first time in Russian art that a factory worker was made the main character in a painting. Yaroshenko’s pictures illustrated the revolutionary and liberation movement in Russia.
#8
Nikolai Yaroshenko’s paintings located at the Samara Regional Ethnography Museum used to be part of the home collection of a merchant family, the Shikhobalovs. They manufactured meat products and were famous as art patrons and philanthropists.
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The Blind
Creation period
1879
Dimensions
95x140 cm
95×140 cm
95×140 cm
Technique
Оil on canvas
Collection
Exhibition
10
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