Sylvester Feodosievich Shchedrin was a Russian artist and landscape painter. When he was just nine, he became one of the students of the Academy of Arts. Right away, Shchedrin began to specialize in landscape painting.

Long before the end of the course, Sylvester Feodosievich was given significant awards for his work, mainly for drawings from nature, namely a silver medal in 1808 and a Small Gold Medal in 1809. In 1811, he graduated from the Academy, having created a diploma painting “View from Petrovsky Island, ” for which he received a Grand Gold Medal, which gave him the right to receive a state pension for studying abroad. Due to the war of 1812, the trip was postponed, and the young artist went to Italy only in 1818. He stayed in this country until the end of his days. The painter died in Sorrento in 1830.

The collection of the Voronezh Regional Art Museum named after Ivan Kramskoy features the work of the artist of the Italian period. The painting depicts a seashore in the rays of the setting sun. The coast is drowning in the shadow of the fortress bastions. There are a lot of people on the beach doing their daily chores. Fishing boats pulled ashore lie on the sand. The sky is clear, the sea is calm.

Often varying the same motif, the artist created a series of landscapes “New Rome, ” “Waterfalls in Tivoli, ” “Verandas and grottoes.” He was one of the first in European art to become seriously interested in plein-air. His art influenced the formation of the School of Posillipo in Naples. With his brush, he sang of the sunlit serene bays and harbors, protected from storms and thunderstorms. The artist transformed the daily life of the heroes of his paintings: fishermen, merchants, sailors — in a poetically sublime hymn to human existence. Such is the “Italian Landscape” presented in the exhibition, which testifies to the artist’s desire for a thorough study of nature, the expression of his personal attitude towards it.