Konstantin Fyodorovich Yuon was a bright original painter, and a graphic artist who created a unique series of paintings of Russian life in the first half of the 20th century.
Yuon, like other painters of the creative association “Union of Russian Artists”, mastered the pictorial principles of the French Impressionists, without breaking with the traditions of Russian Realism. As a student at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture, he developed his own unique artistic style, leaving behind the period of imitation characteristic of novice artists.
Even while at the school, the life and history of the country became the subject of the artist’s interest. He drew his attention to the cities where the Russian national culture was formed and developed, where its monuments were preserved, where it found a living manifestation in people’s life. Konstantin Yuon, fascinated by the originality and beauty of Russian architecture and culture, traveled around the country, and worked directly in the streets and squares, surrounded by a crowd of spectators. Crowds and architecture became the heroes of his paintings. The artist sketched people and horses from life and painted sleds and carts from nature, for the convenience of work, setting up a perimeter around himself with a rope on pegs.
The artist wrote from Sergiev Posad,
