Vasily Vasilyevich Meshkov was born into the family of Vasily Nikitich Meshkov, a Russian landscape painter. In 1909, he entered the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture and studied under Konstantin Korovin.
In 1911, Vasily Meshkov came to Crimea for the first time. The nature of Taurida charmed the young artist with its brightness and rich colors. It was during his first visit to Crimea that he created the work “Gurzuf. Rocks”, which is housed in the collection of the Novokuznetsk Art Museum. “All this called me to work, to search for some new solutions — the emerald sea, the infinite sky and the brilliance of red-hot stones, ” the artist recalled.
The joy of being and youthful enthusiasm control the artist’s brush in the study “Gurzuf. Rocks”: the swaying sea sparkles and the peaks of the rocks shine with light. The very nature of Crimea encourages an expressive, temperamental manner of painting, a desire to convey the sun, air, light. During that period, the young painter was strongly influenced by his teacher Konstantin Korovin.
The artist recalled one of his plein air sessions
as follows,
