The Nizhny Tagil Museum of Fine Arts houses a study that the great Russian artist Boris Kustodiev painted while working on the set design for a production of “Not a Penny, And Suddenly Altyn”, a play by Alexander Ostrovsky.

Boris Mikhailovich Kustodiev popularized the aesthetics of a provincial Russian town. He was born and grew up in Astrakhan, a merchant town with a patriarchal environment. He started taking art lessons while he was still a child, and in 1896, he entered the Imperial Academy of Arts in St. Petersburg where he studied under Vasily Evmeniyevich Savinsky and Ilya Yefimovich Repin. In 1903, Boris Kustodiev graduated with a gold medal and went on an Academy-sponsored trip to Germany, Italy, France, and Spain, together with his wife and young son. Although he was supposed to travel for a year, after just six months, the artist returned to Russia and began to work in the Kostroma Governorate where he created paintings of bright and festive folk life. The artist spent the last 15 years of his life coping with a serious illness confined to a wheelchair. Still, it was during that period that he created his most life-affirming paintings.

Boris Kustodiev’s paintings are festive, colorful, and ornamental, resembling a folk theater. In many ways, they are similar to lubok prints and Vyatka painted toys, which explains why the artist depicted himself as a seller of fun and colorful toys in one of his self-portraits. His images of fairs and festivities can be interpreted as studies for scenic design, which made Kustodiev a perfect fit for the theater. In 1911, he started painting set designs for plays by Alexander Nikolayevich Ostrovsky in which the Russian playwright also explored life in provincial towns. Boris Kustodiev treated set design as a painting that determined the artistic style of the entire play. This is why in the theater Kustodiev also remained a painter. He worked only with the plays that were in line with his creative interests and portrayed the life and manners of provincial Russia.

Alexander Ostrovsky wrote his comedy “Not a Penny, And Suddenly Altyn” in 1871 and initially called it “The Morning is Wiser than the Evening”. The action takes place on the outskirts of Moscow in the 1840s. Unfortunately, the scenic design was never reproduced on stage: in 1917, the country faced social and economic devastation, and drastic changes took place in the life of Russian theater. It is hard to believe that the composition, filled with such energy of light and color, was created by an almost paralyzed artist, forced to paint lying down due to his illness.