NATURE OF THE RUSSIAN NORTH IN THE CREATIVE WORK OF E.E. VOLKOV (1844–1920)

It is known that the landscape in Russian painting is formed quite late – only in the last quarter of the XVIII century. The first Russian landscape painters – F.Y. Alekseev, F.M. Matveev, M.N. Vorobyov, Semyon Fedorovich and Sylvester Feodosievich Shchedrin, etc. – focused mainly on the nature of Italy, cultivated Russian landscapes (noble estates and parks) and urban panoramic views. The flowering of the Russian landscape, the hero, becomes the nature of the Central and Northern Russia, second half XIX century – this time is the work of artists, the Wanderers, A.K. Savrasov, E.E. Volkov, I.I. Shishkin, F.A. Vasiliev, A.I. Kuindzhi, I.I. Levitan... Their paintings of the 1870-ies and 1880-ies were exempt from academic canons and established realistic principles. Particular attention was paid to the theme of the swamp, which could probably be explained by the aesthetic attitude common to different types of art to the image of the ordinary and ordinary. However, the opening of the swamp theme does not belong to Peredvizhniki. The first swamp was written in 1863 by P.A. Sukhodolsky (1835-1903), an artist who consistently adhered to the canons of academic painting in composition, drawing, and the General tone of his works. This is especially noticeable in his painting: «Swamp». It is difficult to determine what time of day is depicted-early morning or evening, we can also assume that the darkness is forced by a thundercloud. The feeling of anxiety is enhanced by the color scheme – a General dark color. The painting by P.A. Sukhodolsky clearly bears traces of mythological ideas about the danger that the swamp is fraught with. Motifs associated with swamp mysticism are also found in other artists (A.K. Savrasov and A.I. Kuindzhi, E.E. Volkov). So, in the picture of E.E. Volkov: "Swamp in autumn" (1871) the swamp is shown as a reality of peasant life. This is a familiar and habitable space: poor, thatched huts, bald clumps of bushes, stunted birches and lush swamp vegetation, ducks swim peacefully, on the right you can see the figure of a woman with a sheaf of reeds, expanding the side space of the picture. All these details seem to be embraced by the darkening sky, but there is no sense of anxiety, rather a sense of everyday calm. This is a kind of pictorial story about the difficult peasant life, in the spirit of the democratic mood of the time, expressed in literature. This type of landscape can also be attributed to a later painting by E.E. Volkov: «Landscape. Swamp» (1880-ies). The artist makes the figure of a man on a horse as the compositional center, but keeps in view the vast distance, the viscous swamp soil, and the sky with rare blue gaps repeated in the water. Thus, E.E. Volkov has a special predilection for the theme of the swamp, which is diverse and varies in its landscapes.