Arkady Rylov [antikvár]

ARKADY ALEXANDROVICH RYLOV (1870-1939) was one of the leading Russian landscape painters of the late nineteenth — early twentieth centuries. Ryiov aimed at creating a unified, sensitive, and imaginative picture of nature, producing brilliant canvases remarkable for their freshness and plein-air effects. 1 lis paintings introduced into Russian art the northern scenery with its vast forests, great lakes, broad rivers, turbulent streams, and the wildlife of the north. In his boyhood and youth Rylov lived amid the forests of Viatka (now the Kirov Region), and roaming the woods with a gun and exploring the rivers he learned to know and love this stern land. "Campfire life in this untrodden wilderness made me take up landscape painting," he used to say, looking back on his past. Soon after moving to St. Petersburg in 1888 he was admitted to the Academy of Arts, where he studied under A. Kuinji, one of the greatest among Russian landscape painters. Kuinji, famous for the novelty of his themes, his style, his vigorous colouring, and for the deeply poetic quality of his pictures, was also an excellent teacher and trained many talented landscape painters, including N. Roerich, K. Bogayevsky and V. Purvitis. Rylov further developed the principles of his teacher. After Kuinji's death he became one of the founders of the association of painters of the realistic school, which bore the name of this great master. The Association, which worked for several years under the guidance of Rylov, played a progressive role in the evolution of Russian art. "This young man with the characteristic features of a northern Slav," as M. Nesterov described him, did not confine his studies to the Academy: he drew and painted outdoors, observing nature, and took a keen interest in art exhibitions. "1 was particularly impressed by Levitán," he wrote in his recollections of the early years of his career as a painter. "There is music in his realistic landscapes, which reveal the noble soul of a true poet. , , Shishkin was an outstanding craftsman who never deviated from the truth. . . none, either in Russia or elsewhere, surpassed him in the depiction of fir and pine forests. But he lacked the music of Levitán and the palette and inspiration of Kuinji." Rylov's early works are obviously influenced by the painters of the Society for Circulating Art Exhibitions. A notable contribution to the 1898 exhibition at the Academy was his Dying Campfire. Executed in silvery tones, perfectly rendering northern daylight, the canvas testified to his fine appreciation of the rugged northern landscape. It was acquired by P. Tretyakov, founder of the famed national picture gallery that bears his name, who was quick to recognize young native talent. The turn of the century witnessed important developments in Russian art. For Rylov that was a period of quest for new ways of pictorial representation, and of increasing use of plein-air methods. This, together with a persistent study of nature, paved the way for his further achievements. His work On the Banks of the Viatka was painted from the impressions of his annual wanderings through the dense forests along the Viatka, where he had lived in his youth. This canvas was his first attempt at painting the vast forested expanses typical of the Russian north. In it, Rylov gives a masterly rendering of space, without, however, destroying the picture plane. The picture received a gold medal award at the Munich International Exhibition of 1901 and a year later won acclaim in Vienna. Rylov's works reveal his strong desire to achieve a poetic mood. P. Kornilov, a student of Rylov's art, very rightly remarked that the painter had learned more from nature and music, which he loved so dearly, than from any of his teachers. For there is music in his landscapes, the stirring power of music subtly captured.