Alexei Gavrilovich Venetsianov (1780-1847)

G.VENETSIANOV'S "Peasant Woman Carding Flax" is a pearl of the Kalinin collection. At first glance this girl appears to be beautiful — regular features, a high forehead, large blue eyes, and the face a soft oval... But gradually it dawns on you that she is not really beautiful judging by the conventional standards of beauty. Her charm lies not so much in her out­ward beauty as in her inner world as it is reflected in the picture. A sense of dignity along with modesty, gentle­ness and femininity can be sensed in the girl's character. One is delighted, of course, by the artist's rendering of the portrait, and his obvious interest in the unnamed peasant girl. Even her modest attire — the kerchief on her head, the linen blouse, the inexpensive earrings and beads — are impor­tant to him. He sees the simplicity and harmony of her apparel and adorn­ments as typical of the innate good taste of the people.

The portrait was painted in the early twenties of last century — over 150 years ago. At that time Russian art was dominated by academism, and painters who presented ceremo­nial compositions on mythological or, at best, historical subjects won ac­claim at exhibitions.
It required courage for a painter to affirm in his art the artist's right to choose an ordinary person, a serf, to be the subject of a work of art. Russia had such a painter in Alexei Venetsianov, a modest, quiet person who spent his whole life in glorifying the unostentatious, poetic beauty of Russian peasants. He was born in Moscow in 1780, worked as a draughtsman, then as a land sur­veyor, and later as an official in the postal department, at the same time studying painting with the outstand­ing Russian painter, V.Borovikovsky.

The people's life became the cent­ral subject of his work. With trepida­tion Venetsianov devoted himself to painting his native region and peas­ant life in the villages.

The fundamental innovation of this "most silent" (as Venetsianov some­times was called) of painters was acclaimed even by his contempo­raries. In 1824 the journal Otechestvennje Zapiski (Motherland Notes) wrote: "At long last we have a paint­er who employs his considerable ta­lent to depict solely his native land, to portray what he sees around him, that which is near to his and to our hearts, and who is doing so with consum­mate skill... Venetsianov's achieve­ment is all the more important be­cause it undoubtedly will induce many others to follow in his foot­steps..."
In Venetsianov's canvases Russian painting acquired its first portraits of ordinary people, in which were por­trayed the best features of the Rus­sian people's character — dignity and spiritual   sincerity.   Recall  the   most widely known pictures of this artist: "In the Field. Spring," "Reapers," "Harvesting. Summer." These splen­did canvases are permeated with a lyrical feeling. And though the main principle of the painter's work was "... an unsophisticated view of nature and unreserved trust in it," because of his depth of understanding of the subject, he was able to overcome the com­monplace element of the depicted scenes, rising to a high generaliza­tion — Homeland: The Land — Our Nurturer, Woman as Mother.

The charm of the painter's person­ality is reflected in all his works, but perhaps the most important of Venet­sianov's paintings is the gallery of women's portraits, Venetsianov's pic­tures, glorifying the spiritual richness of the Russian peasant woman, her moral strength and integrity of character, as though embodying the national type of feminine beauty, adorn the most important collections of Russian art.