The exhibition of the Sevastopol Art Museum named after Mikhail Pavlovich Kroshitsky houses a small landscape named “Pond” by the famous Russian artist Vasily Dmitrievich Polenov (1844–1927).
The painting was created in the small town of Veules in Normandy, northern France, where Polenov painted a lot of excellent studies. This one, so calm, softly but accurately drawn, painted en plein air, retains the living impression of nature, but is perceived as a complete, independent work — as a painting in its own right. Curiously enough, this place was, most likely, “given” to the young artist by a senior comrade of his — Alexey Petrovich Bogolyubov. The State Tretyakov Gallery houses his landscape “Forest in Veules. Normandy” made three years earlier — in 1871, which depicts the same picturesque corner of nature.
Vasily Dmitrievich Polenov is widely known for his
historical and genre paintings, portraits. Yet, he was most of all attracted to
landscape, plein air painting. In 1871, Vasily Polenov graduated from the
Academy of Arts and was awarded a grand gold medal, as well as Ilya Repin. Both
artists were entitled to a state-funded trip to Europe. A five-year period of
traveling in Germany, Italy, and France played a huge role in the creative
development of Polenov. At the time, he was not yet fully developed as an
artist, had not chosen his line of interest and was therefore more open to
foreign influences, continued to learn not only from the old masters, visiting
galleries, museums, and private collections, but also modern painters, with
whose works he became familiarized at numerous exhibitions. Studying the works
of remarkable French landscape painters, and above all the Barbizonians, the
artist learned directly, rather than through academic schemes, to look at
nature and understand it, to comprehend its great harmony. Vasily Polenov’s stay
in Paris coincided with the time of the first exhibitions of the
Impressionists. Though their works had no decisive effect on the artist’s style,
they acted as an additional impetus to his mastery of plein air painting.