1861-1932 Russian Konstantin Korovin Galleries Konstantin was born in Moscow to a merchant family officially registered as peasants of Vladimir gubernia. His father, Aleksey Mikhailovich Korovin, earned a University degree and was more interested in arts and music than in the family business established by Konstantin's grandfather. Konstantin's older brother Sergey Korovin was a notable realist painter. Konstantin's relative Illarion Pryanishnikov was also a prominent painter of the time and a teacher at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture. In 1875 Konstantin entered the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpturing and Architecture, where he learned from Vasily Perov and Alexei Savrasov. His brother, Sergey was already a student of the School. During their scholar years Korovins became friends with their fellow students Valentin Serov and Isaac Levitan, Kontantin kept these friendship through the whole of his life. In 1881-1882, Korovin spent a year at the Imperial Academy of Arts in Saint Petersburg, but returned disappointed to the Moscow School of painting, sculpturing and architecture. He studied at the school under the new teacher Vasily Polenov until 1886. In 1885, Korovin made traveled to Paris and Spain. Paris was a shock for me?? Impressionists?? in them I found everything for what I was scolded back at home, in Moscow, he later wrote. Korovin. On the balcony, Spanish women Leonora and Ampara. 1897-1898.Polenov introduced Korovin to Savva Mamontov's Abramtsevo circle: Viktor Vasnetsov, Apollinary Vasnetsov, Ilya Repin, Mark Antokolsky and others. The Abramtsevo circle's love for stilized Russian themes is reflected in Korovin's picture A Northern Idyll. In 1885 Korovin works for Mamontov's Opera house. He designed the stage decor for Giuseppe Verdi's Aida, L??o Delibes' Lakme and Georges Bizet's Carmen. St. Triphon's Brook in Pechenga. 1894.In 1888, Korovin traveled with Mamontov to Italy and Spain, where he produced painting On the balcony, Spanish women Leonora and Ampara. Konstantin traveled within Russia, Caucasus and Central Asia, exhibited with Peredvizhniki. He was painting in the Impressionist and later in the Art Nouveau style. In the 1890s, Korovin became a member of the Mir iskusstva art group. Korovin's subsequent works was strongly influenced by his travel to the North. In 1888 he was captivated by the stern northern landscapes, as seen in The Coast of Norway and The Northern Sea. His second trip to the North, with Valentin Serov in 1894, coincided with the construction of the Northern Railway. Korovin painted a large number of landscapes: Norwegian Port, Saint Trifon's Brook in Pechenega, Hammerfest: Aurora Borealis, The Coast at Murmansk and others. The paintings are built on a delicate web of shades of grey. The etude style of these works was typical for the Korovin's art of the 1890s. Using material from his northern trip, Korovin designed the Northern Railway pavilion at the All Russia Exhibition of 1896 at Nizhny Novgorod. In 1900, Korovin designed the Central Asia section of the Russian Empire pavilion on the Paris World Fair; and was awarded the Legion of Honour by the French government. Spring, 1917In the beginning of the 20th century Korovin focused his attention on the theatre. He moved from Mamontov's opera to Mariinsky Theatre in Saint Petersburg. Departing from the tradition of the stage decor, which only indicated the place of action, Korovin produced a mood decor, which conveyed the general emotions of the performance. Korovin designed sets for Constantin Stanislavski's dramatic productions, as well as Mariinsky's operas and ballets. He did the stage design for such Mariinsky's productions as Faust (1899), The Little Humpbacked Horse (1901) and Sadko (1906) that became famous for their expressiveness. Pier in Gurzuf, 1914In 1905, Korovin became an Academician of Painting, and in 1909-1913 he was a professor at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture. One of the artist's favourite themes was Paris. He painted A Paris Cafe (1890s'), Cafe de la Paix (1905'), La Place de la Bastille (1906), Paris at Night; Le Boulevard Italien (1908'), Night Carnival (1901), Paris in the Evening (1907) and others. During the World War I Korovin worked as a camouflage consultant at the headquarters of one of the Russian armies and was often seen at the front line. After the October Revolution Korovin continued to work in the theatre, designing stage for Richard Wagner's Die Walk??re and Siegfried as well as Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's The Nutcracker (1918-1920). In 1923 Korovin moved to Paris by the advice of the Commissar of Enlightenment, Anatoliy Vasilievich Lunacharsky, to cure his heart condition and help Korovin's handicapped son. There was supposed to be a large exhibition of Korovin's works but the works were stolen and Korovin was left penniless. For years he produced the numerous Russian winters and Paris boulevards just to make ends meet. In the last years of his life he produced stage designs for many of the major theatres of Europe, America, Asia and Australia, the most famous of which is his scenery for a production by the Turin Opera House of Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov's The Golden Cockerel. Korovin died in Paris on September 11, 1939. Konstantin's son Alexey Korovin (1897-1950) was a notable Russian-French painter. Because of an accident during his childhood he had both feet amputated. Alexey committed suicide in 1950.  Related Paintings of Konstantin Korovin :. | Impression | Cafe of Paris | Songstress | The Rural life of Northern | Pier |
Related Artists:
Maurice quentin de la tour
1704-88 French pastellist. He was one of the greatest pastellists of the 18th century, an equal of Jean-Sim?on Chardin and Jean-Baptiste Perronneau. Unlike them, however, he painted no works in oils. Reacting against the stately portraits of preceding generations and against the mythological portraits of many of his contemporaries, La Tour returned to a more realistic and sober style of work. The fundamental quality of his art lies in his ability to suggest the temperament and psychology of his subjects by means of their facial expression, and thereby to translate their fugitive emotions on to paper: 'I penetrate into the depths of my subjects without their knowing it, and capture them whole', as he himself put it. His considerable success led to commissions from the royal family, the court, the rich bourgeoisie and from literary, artistic and theatrical circles.
Allan Ramsay
1713-1784 British Allan Ramsay Galleries Allan Ramsay was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, the eldest son of Allan Ramsay, poet and author of The Gentle Shepherd. Ramsay's first wife, Anne Bayne, by Ramsay Ramsay's second wife Margaret Lindsay, by RamsayFrom the age of twenty he studied in London under the Swedish painter Hans Huyssing, and at the St. Martin's Lane Academy; leaving in 1736 for Rome and Naples, where he worked for three years under Francesco Solimena and Imperiali (Francesco Fernandi). On his return in 1738 he first settled in Edinburgh, attracting attention by his head of Duncan Forbes of Culloden and his full-length portrait of the Duke of Argyll, later used on Royal Bank of Scotland banknotes. He later moved to London, where he was employed by the Duke of Bridgewater. His pleasant manners and varied culture, not less than his artistic skill, contributed to render him popular. His only serious competitor was Thomas Hudson, with whom he shared a drapery painter, Joseph van Aken. In 1739 he married his first wife, Anne Bayne, the daughter of a professor of Scots law at Edinburgh, Alexander Bayne of Rires (c.1684?C1737), and Mary Carstairs (1695??C1759). None of their 3 children survived childhood, and she died on 4 February 1743 giving birth to the third of them. One of his drawing pupils was Margaret Lindsay, eldest daughter of Sir Alexander Lindsay of Evelick and Amelia Murray (granddaughter to David Murray, 5th Viscount of Stormont and sister to the naval officer John Lindsay). He later eloped with her and on 1 March 1752 they married in the Canongate Kirk, Edinburgh, though her father never forgave her for marrying an artist. Ramsay already had to maintain a daughter from his previous marriage as well as his two surviving sisters, but told Sir Alexander that he could provide Margaret with an annual income of £100 which would increase ??as my affairs increase, and I thank God, they are in a way of increasing?? and that his only motive for the marriage was ??my love for your Daughter, who, I am sensible, is entitled to much more than ever I shall have to bestow upon her??. There were three surviving children from their long and happy marriage, Amelia (1755?C1813), Charlotte (1758?C1818?), and John (1768?C1845). Ramsay and his new wife spent 1754?C1757 together in Italy, going to Rome, Florence, Naples and Tivoli, researching, painting and drawing old masters, antiquities and archaeological sites, and (to earn an income) painting Grand Tourists' portraits. This and other trips to Italy involved more literary and antiquarian research than art. After their return, he was in 1761 appointed to succeed John Shackelton as Principle Painter in Ordinary to George III, beating Hudson to the post; and so fully employed was he on the royal portraits which the king was in the habit of presenting to ambassadors and colonial governors, that he was forced to take advantage of the services of a host of assistants--of whom David Martin and Philip Reinagle are the best known. He gave up painting in about 1770 to concentrate on literary pursuits, his health shattered by an accidental dislocation of the right arm and his second wife's death in 1782. With unflinching pertinacity, he struggled until he had completed a likeness of the king upon which he was engaged at the time, and then started for his beloved Italy, leaving behind him a series of fifty royal portraits to be completed by his assistant Reinagle. For several years he lingered in the south, his constitution finally broken. He died at Dover on 10 August 1784.
Alexander Roslin
1718--93 Swedish painter and pastellist, active in Germany and France. He trained with Lars Ehrenbill (1697-1747), a draughtsman employed by the Admiralty in Malmö, and in Stockholm under Georg Engelhardt Schräder (1684-1750), a portrait painter working in the tradition of Hyacinthe Rigaud and Nicolas de Largillierre. In 1741 Roslin moved to Göteborg, but the following year he returned to Malmö, where he executed devotional works for the parish church of Hasslöv, Halland, and began establishing himself as a portrait painter.