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Lot Essay
In 19th Century Russia, hunting was a national institution as immortalised in Ivan Turgenev's 'Sketches from a Hunter's Album' first published in 1852.
The formal chase, comprising a large entourage and pack of hounds ranging across the country estates, was paralleled by a more solitary game of cat-and-mouse that required the hunter, his dog and occasionally a serf as companion.
The latter form had an almost egalitarian element; before the emancipation of the serfs in 1861 it was this type of hunt that levelled the nobleman with the serf. The Russian countryside, with its impenetrable forests and wild landscape, signalled the end of urban civilisation and the start of the realm ruled by the peasantry and ancient folklore. The Russian hunt became what Orlando Figes refers to as a 'rural odyssey' (O. Figes, Natasha's Dance, London, 2003, p. 107), taking on elements of a spiritual journey.
'Hunter' (Okhotnik) is an extraordinary canvas that captures the drama of this distinctly Russian ritual. The composition draws the viewer into the depths of the forest, amidst the primordial firs where a pervasive silence prevails. The hunter is keen to preserve this silence, and settles on a felled trunk where he waits with gun and dog, straining to hear the movements of his ill-fated prey. As the critic for Vsemirnaia illiustratsiia explains, '...experience forces [the hunter] to point the muzzle of his rifle down to the ground, so that the smell of gunpowder does not reach the nostrils of the animal' (Vsemirnaia illiustratsiia, St. Petersburg, No. 409, XVI, 30 October 1876). To conceal this hidden danger further, he also clamps shut the jaws of his eager four-legged companion.
The work of Konstantin Savitskii is characterised by this type of palpable tension. Like other Peredvizhniki, Savitskii depicted episodes from the lives of the peasantry but he also endeavoured to provide his canvases with an inherent narrative and psychological impact. His greatest works, including: 'To War' (State Russian Museum, 1888), 'Bringing out the Icon to the People' (State Tretyakov Gallery, 1878) and 'Repair works on the Railway' (State Tretyakov Gallery, 1874) all share this powerful sense of drama that cannot fail to engage the viewer. Indeed, '...as a result of looking at ['Hunter'], the viewer himself starts to share the expectation that shows on the hunter's face...it is difficult not to understand that the hunter has only one thought: to fire off a quick and accurate shot!' (ibid., Vsemirnaia illustratsiia).
At the time of E. Levenfish's work on the artist published in 1959, 'Hunter' was known only from an engraving and a brief description in Khar'kovskie gybernskie vedomosti. According to Levenfish, the work was purchased directly from the 3rd Wanderers' Exhibition after the exhibit had reached Kiev. Since that time, the whereabouts of this work have been unknown.
The formal chase, comprising a large entourage and pack of hounds ranging across the country estates, was paralleled by a more solitary game of cat-and-mouse that required the hunter, his dog and occasionally a serf as companion.
The latter form had an almost egalitarian element; before the emancipation of the serfs in 1861 it was this type of hunt that levelled the nobleman with the serf. The Russian countryside, with its impenetrable forests and wild landscape, signalled the end of urban civilisation and the start of the realm ruled by the peasantry and ancient folklore. The Russian hunt became what Orlando Figes refers to as a 'rural odyssey' (O. Figes, Natasha's Dance, London, 2003, p. 107), taking on elements of a spiritual journey.
'Hunter' (Okhotnik) is an extraordinary canvas that captures the drama of this distinctly Russian ritual. The composition draws the viewer into the depths of the forest, amidst the primordial firs where a pervasive silence prevails. The hunter is keen to preserve this silence, and settles on a felled trunk where he waits with gun and dog, straining to hear the movements of his ill-fated prey. As the critic for Vsemirnaia illiustratsiia explains, '...experience forces [the hunter] to point the muzzle of his rifle down to the ground, so that the smell of gunpowder does not reach the nostrils of the animal' (Vsemirnaia illiustratsiia, St. Petersburg, No. 409, XVI, 30 October 1876). To conceal this hidden danger further, he also clamps shut the jaws of his eager four-legged companion.
The work of Konstantin Savitskii is characterised by this type of palpable tension. Like other Peredvizhniki, Savitskii depicted episodes from the lives of the peasantry but he also endeavoured to provide his canvases with an inherent narrative and psychological impact. His greatest works, including: 'To War' (State Russian Museum, 1888), 'Bringing out the Icon to the People' (State Tretyakov Gallery, 1878) and 'Repair works on the Railway' (State Tretyakov Gallery, 1874) all share this powerful sense of drama that cannot fail to engage the viewer. Indeed, '...as a result of looking at ['Hunter'], the viewer himself starts to share the expectation that shows on the hunter's face...it is difficult not to understand that the hunter has only one thought: to fire off a quick and accurate shot!' (ibid., Vsemirnaia illustratsiia).
At the time of E. Levenfish's work on the artist published in 1959, 'Hunter' was known only from an engraving and a brief description in Khar'kovskie gybernskie vedomosti. According to Levenfish, the work was purchased directly from the 3rd Wanderers' Exhibition after the exhibit had reached Kiev. Since that time, the whereabouts of this work have been unknown.