The artist is Surikov
Option is the reproduction of the picture of the same name (1870), located in the Krasnoyarsk Art Museum. AT. And. Surikova. Surikov debuted at the academic exhibition in 1870 (opened on September 27) the initial version of the picture. At the end of the exhibition, he sold a picture to his patron, Siberian gold miner p. And. Kuznetsov, for 100 rubles. In the winter of the same year, the artist performed the option of a composition that now belongs to the timing. Surikov in the Russian Museum. SPb, 1998. With. 106.
Among Surikov written by Surikov for the next academic exams of sketches, the painting he created in the first year of admission to the academy is worth „The view of the monument to Peter I on Senate Square in St. Petersburg ‘(1870), which Surikov later recalled: „My first picture was: a monument to Peter I under the moonlight. I went to Senate Square for a long time – I watched. There the lanterns then burned nearby, and on the horse – glare “.
Although, it would seem, the choice of motive repeats the lunar effects beloved by academicians, the artist was actually led by the desire to express his, personal admiration for the magnificence of St. Petersburg historical monuments, to show Peter I on a majestic and some kind of ghostly silhouette drawing against the backdrop of the blue, to emphasize the scale Gently generalized in its outlines in the evening darkness of the Isaac’s Cathedral. It is already characterized by a rather unusual appeal to the winter landscape, where bluish and yellowish reflexes in the snow enhance the picturesqueness of the imprinted species. The young artist solves the task of transmitting space not only thanks to the linear perspective, but also by means of coloring, using the gradations of shades of color system, the modulation of light. In the light pasty strokes in the foreground, in the interpretation of light of lanterns and glare on the fence, a different picturesque language is felt than the one that was in the smoothed canvases of its peers and predecessors.
Perfectly conveyed the condensing blue near the cathedral, a blue shadow from the sleigh with a cabman waiting for the riders, light air blue shadows in the front in the snow, slightly frightened by bluish snow, gray granite. A keen sense of nature, the gift of the natural colorist helped Surikov to change the traditional structure of such paintings and bring the living content of evening light, the lunar sky and the snow area into his work. This landscape, which is distinguished by an elevated system and unconditional for the courage of a picturesque decision for a novice artist, has become a serious application for the future.
Irina Shuvalova. Surikov’s works in the Russian Museum // Surikov in the Russian Museum. 1998. SPb, s. 64.