Lot 47: Vasily Ivanovich Shukhaev , 1887-1973 winter landscape oil on canvas

signed in Latin and dated Paris 1922 l.r. oil on canvas

55.5 by 46.5cm., 21¾ by 18 1/3in.

Looking at this stark, edgy image, it may come as a surprise to learn that it is by the neo-academic painter Vasily Shukhaev. Executed shortly after the artist's arrival in Paris, this painting actually concludes a distinctive series of works created during his short stay in Finland in 1920-21. After crossing the Soviet border on foot, Shukhaev and his wife spent 10 months not far from Petrograd in rural Finland. This period was transitional not only geographically, as they waited for Vasily's friend and colleague Alexandre Iacovleff to arrange for them to come to Paris, but also aesthetically (see E. Iakovleva & N. Elizbarashvili, 'Finlandskii period tvorchestva VI Shukhaeva' in Rossiskoe Zarubezhie v Finlandii Mezhdu Dvumia Mirovymi Voinami, St. Petersburg, 2004, pp.51-61). Here Shukhaev first turned systematically to landscape painting, a subject that thereafter occupied a distinct place in his oeuvre. Furthermore, the visual style of the series represented a departure towards modernist aesthetics. A representative of the neo-classical movement in Russian art, which stressed the continuation of artistic traditions, Shukhaev was known more typically for fine volumetric modelling and vibrant colours. In this work, as in the entire Finnish series, he adopts flat, unmodelled, angular forms that verge on abstraction and depicts figures in a primitivised, naïve way, resembling visually the work of the avant-garde. Yet at the same time, he retains a clear historical influence--the 15υth century Dutch painter, Pieter Bruegel. The debt to Bruegel's winter landscapes is evident in the greenish sky, the simplified contours of the trees, and also the genre element introduced by the depiction of figures involved in common countryside activities, such as wood-chopping here (fig.1). Another retrospective touch is the inclusion of Shukhaev's name on the hut--it was a typical device of Dutch painters to make their signature an integral part of the painting. We are grateful to Anna Winestein, Scatcherd European Scholar at Oxford University, and Associate Director of the Ballets Russes 2009 Festival, for providing the note for this lot.