The portrait of Sychkov’s younger sister, Ekaterina Sychkova, was created in the second year of the artist’s training at the Drawing School of the Imperial Society for the Encouragement of Arts. This artwork is distinguished by the easiness of execution and accuracy of the drawing: the artist vividly conveyed the anatomy of the figure and the face; the wrinkled fabric of the costume. He highlighted the volumes with the help of light and shadow transitions, while accurately depicting the smallest details, down to the seams on the sleeve. All these features corresponded to the academic rules, which art students were taught in St. Petersburg. Fedot Sychkov not only mastered the formal techniques but also was able to use them to create the whole character of the peasant girl. Every detail of the portrait reflects the colossal work that the young master had done in just one year of training.
The portrait of Ekaterina Sychkova is painted in the Mikhail Shibanov and Alexey Venetsianov portraiture tradition. These artists were the first to turn to the peasant genre in Russia. In contrast to the maîtres, who used idealization, Fedot Sychkov refused any attempts to gloss over reality in this portrait.
The girl is painted against a darkened red-maroon background. The basic colors of the peasant outfit are in harmony with it — a light blue jacket with balloon sleeves, a pink sarafan (trapeze-shaped jumper dress) and a dark blue apron with red flowers tied high under the chest. The girl’s appearance attracts not so much by its charm, but by her noble simplicity and seriousness.
Fedot Sychkov lost his father in his early childhood; with his sick mother and sisters, Daria and Ekaterina, he had to go through a lot of humiliation and terrible poverty. The little boy, along with the adult men, had to go to Saratov Governorate and harvest wheat for landowners for money. When there were no jobs available, the family severely suffered.
Ekaterina Sychkova is the youngest of two sisters. She never established a family of her own and lived with the artist and his wife in Kochelayevo until her death. Having love in abundance, she gave it all to her brother and her niece Lenochka, for who she cared when her older sister Daria came to visit them. When Fedot Sychkov was away from his home, he always sent to his “dear Katya” heartwarming postcards and letters written with great care and love from St. Petersburg, Moscow, and Italy.
The portrait of Ekaterina Sychkova is painted in the Mikhail Shibanov and Alexey Venetsianov portraiture tradition. These artists were the first to turn to the peasant genre in Russia. In contrast to the maîtres, who used idealization, Fedot Sychkov refused any attempts to gloss over reality in this portrait.
The girl is painted against a darkened red-maroon background. The basic colors of the peasant outfit are in harmony with it — a light blue jacket with balloon sleeves, a pink sarafan (trapeze-shaped jumper dress) and a dark blue apron with red flowers tied high under the chest. The girl’s appearance attracts not so much by its charm, but by her noble simplicity and seriousness.
Fedot Sychkov lost his father in his early childhood; with his sick mother and sisters, Daria and Ekaterina, he had to go through a lot of humiliation and terrible poverty. The little boy, along with the adult men, had to go to Saratov Governorate and harvest wheat for landowners for money. When there were no jobs available, the family severely suffered.
Ekaterina Sychkova is the youngest of two sisters. She never established a family of her own and lived with the artist and his wife in Kochelayevo until her death. Having love in abundance, she gave it all to her brother and her niece Lenochka, for who she cared when her older sister Daria came to visit them. When Fedot Sychkov was away from his home, he always sent to his “dear Katya” heartwarming postcards and letters written with great care and love from St. Petersburg, Moscow, and Italy.
