Alexander Mikhailovich Gerasimov had a bright and versatile artistic talent. He was an uncompromising realist. The artist’s realism was clothed with poetry, as well as touching simplicity and clarity. Despite Gerasimov’s penchant for portraits and monumental painting, landscapes occupied a special place in his work. Each of them is endowed with lyrical feelings that a person experiences when they see their homeland. Sincere excitement about the depicted scene was a constant in Alexander Mikhailovich Gerasimov’s landscapes. He used to say, “My love for painting was nourished by the fragrance of my native fields and steppes.” These words can well be used as a motto for the artist’s entire career.
Alexander Gerasimov painted the picture in a place quite significant for Russian culture — Abramtsevo. Throughout its history, the estate had different owners, but it only became famous when it was bought by the writer Sergey Aksakov. There, he was visited by Gogol, Turgenev, and Tyutchev, and wrote his most famous works: “The Little Scarlet Flower”, “The Family Chronicle”, and “Childhood Years of Bagrov Grandson”. Decades later, when Abramtsevo was owned by the major industrialist and patron of the arts Savva Mamontov, the estate began to attract many painters and performers, such as Polenov, Vasnetsov, Serov, Repin, Nesterov, Levitan, Vrubel, Chaliapin and Yermolova, who lived and worked there and even formed the famous Mamontov Circle. In Soviet times, artists lived in a dacha settlement that surrounded the estate.
The painting “In the Orchard in Autumn” has its own compositional structure and format. Gerasimov did not stop at just a plein-air impression of the landscape — he also masterfully created a perspective of a path, running deep into the orchard. The picture is filled with the gold coloring of autumn days and conveys the velvet touch of fading nature. Instead of showing autumn as sadly and silently withering, Alexander Mikhailovich Gerasimov rather preferred to depict its prime, its most splendid and spectacular stage. Alexander Gerasimov’s landscapes, even those created at the very beginning of his career, can be characterized by the words of the French painter Jacques-Louis David, “Your painting has an important quality, which makes it stand out among the rest — a feeling.”
Alexander Gerasimov painted the picture in a place quite significant for Russian culture — Abramtsevo. Throughout its history, the estate had different owners, but it only became famous when it was bought by the writer Sergey Aksakov. There, he was visited by Gogol, Turgenev, and Tyutchev, and wrote his most famous works: “The Little Scarlet Flower”, “The Family Chronicle”, and “Childhood Years of Bagrov Grandson”. Decades later, when Abramtsevo was owned by the major industrialist and patron of the arts Savva Mamontov, the estate began to attract many painters and performers, such as Polenov, Vasnetsov, Serov, Repin, Nesterov, Levitan, Vrubel, Chaliapin and Yermolova, who lived and worked there and even formed the famous Mamontov Circle. In Soviet times, artists lived in a dacha settlement that surrounded the estate.
The painting “In the Orchard in Autumn” has its own compositional structure and format. Gerasimov did not stop at just a plein-air impression of the landscape — he also masterfully created a perspective of a path, running deep into the orchard. The picture is filled with the gold coloring of autumn days and conveys the velvet touch of fading nature. Instead of showing autumn as sadly and silently withering, Alexander Mikhailovich Gerasimov rather preferred to depict its prime, its most splendid and spectacular stage. Alexander Gerasimov’s landscapes, even those created at the very beginning of his career, can be characterized by the words of the French painter Jacques-Louis David, “Your painting has an important quality, which makes it stand out among the rest — a feeling.”
