The Pskov Museum presents a painting “Evening. The Return of the Herd” by Alexander Alexandrovich Kiselyov — the Russian landscape painter of the second half of the 19th century and the Itinerant artist.
The artist was born into a military family; he first studied at the Arakcheyevsky Cadet Corps and then at the Saint Petersburg Cadet Corps. In 1858, he enrolled at the Department of History and Philology of Saint Petersburg University. Soon after, Alexander Kiselyov focused on the fine arts.
In 1862, Alexander Kiselyov entered the Academy of Arts — first as a non-matriculated student, then as a permanent one. He attended the landscape class taught by the painter and landscapist Sokrat Maksimovich Vorobyov. At exhibitions held by the Academy, the artist’s works were noted by the public and received critical acclaim.
After graduating from the academy, Alexander Kiselyov quit painting and went to Kharkov, where he received the position of secretary at the Land Bank. This decision to switch careers could probably be attributed to the need for a stable income.
In 1875, when the financial situation in the artist’s family improved, Kiselyov moved to Moscow, where he participated in the exhibition of the Itinerants. He became a member of the Society for Traveling Art Exhibitions and regularly took part in the exhibitions they organized until 1911.
The painter traveled extensively through Germany and France; he also visited Italy and made a number of painting trips to the Caucasus. The range of topics that the artist was interested in was quite diverse — from the majestic views of the Caucasus to the quiet corners of Russian nature.
The 1882 painting “Evening. The Return of the Herd” came to the Pskov Museum from one of the collections of the Leningrad antique salon in 1929.
The horizontally elongated canvas depicts a
panorama of the countryside. Cows with their calves are moving away from the
viewer in the direction of the village. A barefoot shepherd boy in a red shirt
is lagging behind the herd. They are moving along a worn-down road, washed out
by a recent rain; the brightened sky is reflected in puddles. The sun has come
out — it illuminates the wide expanses of fields that stretch beyond the
village all the way to the horizon. There are long greenish-blue shadows cast
by trees and buildings.
