1878-1927 Russian Boris Kustodiev Galleries The Russian Revolution of 1905, which shook the foundations of society, evoked a vivid response in the artist's soul. He contributed to the satirical journals Zhupel (Bugbear) and Adskaya Pochta (Hell??s Mail). At that time, he first met the artists of Mir Iskusstva (World of Art), a group of innovative Russian artists. He joined their association in 1910 and subsequently took part in all their exhibitions. In 1905, Kustodiev first turned to book illustrating, a genre in which he worked throughout his entire life. He illustrated many works of classical Russian literature, including Nikolai Gogol's Dead Souls, The Carriage, and The Overcoat; Mikhail Lermontov's The Lay of Tsar Ivan Vasilyevich, His Young Oprichnik and the Stouthearted Merchant Kalashnikov; and Leo Tolstoy's How the Devil Stole the Peasants Hunk of Bread and The Candle. In 1909, he was elected into Imperial Academy of Arts. He continued to work intensively, but a grave illness??tuberculosis of the spine??required urgent attention. On the advice of his doctors he went to Switzerland, where he spent a year undergoing treatment in a private clinic. He pined for his distant homeland, and Russian themes continued to provide the basic material for the works he painted during that year. In 1918, he painted The Merchant's Wife, which became the most famous of his paintings. The Merchant's Wife, (1918).In 1916, he became paraplegic. "Now my whole world is my room", he wrote. His ability to remain joyful and lively despite his paralysis amazed others. His colourful paintings and joyful genre pieces do not reveal his physical suffering, and on the contrary give the impression of a carefree and cheerful life. His Pancake Tuesday/Maslenitsa (1916) and Fontanka (1916) are all painted from his memories. He meticulously restores his own childhood in the busy city on the Volga banks. In the first years after the Russian Revolution of 1917 the artist worked with great inspiration in various fields. Contemporary themes became the basis for his work, being embodied in drawings for calendars and book covers, and in illustrations and sketches of street decorations. His covers for the journals The Red Cornfield and Red Panorama attracted attention because of their vividness and the sharpness of their subject matter. Kustodiev also worked in lithography, illustrating works by Nekrasov. His illustrations for Leskov's stories The Darner and Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District were landmarks in the history of Russian book designing, so well did they correspond to the literary images.  Related Paintings of Boris Kustodiev :. | Merchant Chest Maker | Kapitsa and Semenov | Fair | Portrait of Julia Kustodieva | Blue House |
Related Artists:
Mrs Alexander Farmer
Birthdate: 10 July 1853 Birthplace: Crawfordsville, Indiana
Bohumil Kubista
(1884 - 1918) was a Czech painter and art critic, one of the founders of Czech modern painting. He studied at the School of Applied Arts in Prague, but left in 1906 to study at the Reale Istituto di Belle Arti in Florence. He, Emil Filla, Antonin Prochezka, and five others founded Osma (The Eight), an Expressionist-oriented group of artists. Kubišta came to his individual expression gradually, at first he was influenced by the work of Vincent van Gogh and Paul Cezanne. He educated himself in in philosophy and optics, and studied colour and the geometrical construction of painting. Kubišta, like several other Czech artists of his generation, was strongly affected by the 1905 Edvard Munch exhibition in Prague. Together with Emil Filla he established the artistic group Osma in 1907. He worked in an Expressionist style until 1910, and exchanged ideas with German painters in Die Bre - ke. He also developed visual ideas learned from the work of Cezanne. His later style (approximately from 1911) was strongly influenced by cubism and expressionism. Expressionist elements, particularly his use of color but also his subject matter, immediately distinguish Kubištaes cubist work from that of founding Paris Cubists Picasso and Braque. He studied color theory, analyzing the harmonic and compositional principles of painters such as El Greco, Eugene Delacroix, Vincent van Gogh, and Edvard Munch. He also paid close attention to mathematical and geometric principles. Around 1911, he became acquainted with Jan Zrzavý and the artistic group Sursum. He died prematurely during the global 1918 flu pandemic which ravaged Europe after the First World War.
COSSA, Francesco del
Italian Early Renaissance Painter, ca.1435-1477 Italian painter. Together with Cosimo Tura and Ercole de' Roberti, Cossa was one of the most important painters working in Ferrara and Bologna in the second half of the 15th century. With them he shared an expressive use of line and solidity of form, but he also had a gift for decorative and anecdotal scenes, most evident in the frescoes in the Palazzo Schifanoia, Ferrara.