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Vasilii Grigorevich Perov, 1833-1882, was
the most prominent in the group of genre painters who in the late fifties and
sixties fully repudiated the academic routine and dedicated their art to
express the protest against social injustice. Chernishevskii could not have
found a better and more devoted painter for this "Lofty realism" than
Perov, who treated rural scenes more realistically than his predecessors,
Venetsianov and Fedotov.
Perov was an illegitimate son of an official. Though his parents later married,
the Church never legalized his status, a fact that left a scar on his character
during his childhood and probably was not without influence on the sardonic
treatment of scenes depicting monastic life in Russia. Perov was not his family
name, but a nickname given to him by an unemployed clerk, whom the parents
hired to teach their son to read and write. Young Vasilii manipulated the pen
("pero" in Russian) with great skill and the teacher decided to
nickname him "Perov." After first studying at the Moscow School for
Painting and Sculpture, Perov was admitted at the Academy. Here we have a
portrait.
After graduating in 1862, he received a scholarship from the Academy and was
sent abroad to continue his studies, but before the end of his term Perov
requested permission to return to Russia. In his letter to the Academy he
mentioned that in Paris he was unable to paint even one picture that could meet
the expectations and that he would do better "To paint themes from Russian
life, which I would execute with love and compassion." He got back in 1864
and two years later was appointed Academician. In 1871 he became professor at
the Moscow School of Painting and Sculpture, the same one where years before he
was a student. Perov was one of the most prolific Russian painters. His aim was
to expose to the Russian public the falseness, duplicity and selfishness of the
society, similarly to what some Russian writers were already doing in their
novels, essays and poems. He expected that the exposure of the wicked would
serve them as a lesson to correct themselves and prevent others to follow their
steps. His first paintings attracted the attention of the public and he almost
overnight became popular. His pictures were not idealistic as
Venetsianov"s nor milky humorous as Fedotov's but very emotional and often
austere. In 1857 he started with a series of sarcastic paintings showing the
arrogance of police officers, corrupt government employees and irresponsible
landlords "Arrival of the District Police Officer," (1858) is one of
them. After this he concentrated his attention to the miserable life of the
Russian peasants and lashed with full strength at priests and monks. Those
painted in the eighteen sixties are his best. In "The Sermon in the
Village Church," (1861) he depicted a landlord who fell asleep, a young
man whispering something in the ear of his beautiful and young wife, and only
poor peasants and children listening to the priest. "Village Easter
Procession," (1861) shows several persons intoxicated, including the
priest and the woman who carries the icon in her hands. This picture was
exhibited by the Academy and soon purchased by Tretiakov for his gallery.
"Tea-drinking at Mitishchi," (1862) is another anti-clerical picture.
It depicts a blind invalid soldier, with a medal on his chest and a bare footed
boy as his leader, begging alms from a fat monk drinking tea, who even does not
care to look at him. "Monastery
Refectory," (1865) is a very sarcastic painting, showing a large group
of monks drinking and feasting, a rich landlord couple invited by the abbot to
join the table, a beggar woman with two kids on the floor extending her arm for
alms, and a waiter trying to uncork a bottle and a monk waiting to get served
and all this under a crucifixion that hovers over their heads and to which
nobody pays attention. This painting was exhibited for the first time after the
death of the artist. In the mid-sixties Perov started painting emotionally very
powerful pictures, depicting miseries of the poor people, peasants and beggars.
Such are "The Drowned Girl," (1867), "Troika," (1866),
"The Last Pub at the City Gate," (1868) and especially "The
Peasant Funeral," painted in 1865. Everything in this picture intensifies
the most tragic moment in the life of a poor peasant family, starting with the
bereaved wife whose bent head and hanged arms can hardly hold the reigns, the
little boy wrapped up in his father's coat and laying next to the urn with the
remains of their father, his little sister holding it in her arms, the horse
slowly draws the sled that carries them all to the cemetery. On the side is the
faithful family dog. Snow, little vegetation, a leaden sky and dark clouds
enhance the emotional mood of this indeed depressing but artistically very
successful picture, probably the best that Perov had painted. Here we have his
portrait of a young boy preparing to fight.
Then in the seventies came a series of portraits of prominent contemporary
Russians, which Perov painted for Tretiakov's gallery in Moscow. Among them are
portraits of Dostoevskii, Pisemskii, Maykov, Pogodin, Ostrovskii,
Turgenev and others. With them he proved to be the
best Russian contemporary portrait painter too, though they are much less
impressive than his genre pictures. At the end of his life Perov tried his luck
with painting religious and historical subjects, such as "Pugachev
rebellion," (1875), "Deposition from the Cross," (1878),
"Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane," (1878), "Nikita
Pustosviat," (1881), one of the leaders of the old-ritualists, but failed
to produce anything remarkable. He knew himself that they were mediocre
pictures, got disappointed and ceased to paint. Instead he started writing
short stories. Weakened by pulmonary tuberculosis, Perov died in 1882. Despite
his clearly anti-clerical paintings he was buried in the holy courtyard of the
Donskoi Monastery in Moscow. More by their social content, their realistic
look, their ideological and didactic intention and their masterly technique
than by their picturesqueness, colors and artistic qualities, Perov and his
paintings have been rated among the best in Russia. His influence on further
development of Russian genre painting and realistic school had been strong and
Perov contributed much to free many painters from the academic conventionalism.
Here we have Perov's portrait of the writer, V. I. Dal, completed in 1872.
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