Sergey Vasilievich Ivanov is one of the outstanding realist artists of the late 19th century, who touched severe social topics in his works; brought to light sides of a public life, unsightly for the metropolitan audience, emphasized the hardships and hopelessness of peasant life in post-reform Russia.
Since 1885 for four years, he traveled to several Russian provinces along with ‘immigrants’ - landless peasants of central Russia, who, after the abolition of serfdom in 1861, having no means of livelihood, were forced to move to the east of the country in search of a better fate and work in industrial enterprises. Because of such spontaneous colonization, by the beginning of the 20th century, more than 2 million people left their homes and moved to Siberia, Central Asia and the Far East.
The road was extremely difficult and took more than six months. People were on foot, on steamboats, by rail in cold freight wagons, spent the night in barracks, at stations, and right on the street. ‘For many dozens of miles he walked with them in the dust of roads, in the rain, rough weather and the scorching sun in the prairies… spent many nights with them, filling out his albums with drawings and notes; many tragic scenes passed before his eyes’ – friends of S.V. Ivanov recall.
As the result of these wanderings, a cycle of paintings about immigrants appeared: ‘To new places. Russia is coming! ” and “Migrants. Walkers “(1886), ” Returnees “(1888) and the final one, “On the Road. The death of an immigrant” (1889), which brought fame to the 25-year-old artist. Pavel Mikhailovich Tretyakov bought the painting directly from the exhibition, now it is stored in the State Tretyakov Gallery, and a full-size sketch for it is in the collection of the Penza Regional Art Gallery.
The father of the family died on the road, a heartbroken widow and small child, and a cart with a few belongings remained. In this usual situation for a migrant, there is all the tragedy and hopelessness shown by the author as simply as possible. How now to bury a dead person humanly, get to their destination, take this cart on themselves, feed themselves on the road, survive in a new place, find work, raise a child, keep hope?
