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Lot Essay
Ivan Pokhitonov enjoyed a glittering artistic career, and was a member of the Imperial Academy of the Arts and the Society of Travelling Art Exhibitions (Peredvizhniki). In 1877 he settled in France and was quickly enticed by the realism and celebration of nature championed by the Barbizon School of Painters. He therefore soon took to sketching and observing nature in the village of Barbizon, which had become an artistic nucleus for landscape artists. In 1878 Pokhitonov exhibited his landscapes at the Salon of the Grand Palais, and in 1882 he signed a lucrative contract in Paris with the art dealer Georges Petit (1856-1920). While the artist spent most of his life working in France and Belgium, he never lost touch with Russia.
Pokhitonov’s mastery of landscape painting and his patriotic affection for his homeland is brought to the fore in the charming and idyllic Zhabovshchina, Minsk province. The present work acts as a personal souvenir, tenderly recording in paint a place close to the artist’s heart, imbued with both nostalgia for a country rediscovered, and contentment in the present. Pokhitonov had returned to Russia in the early 1900s and soon found an artistic refuge on a small estate at Zhabovshchina,where between 1902 and 1906 he found inspiration in capturing the bucolic bliss of the estate in changing seasons. Pokhitonov’s Zhabovshchina works are therefore unique personal snapshots in time extolling the artist’s love for his homeland.
Pokhitonov transports the viewer to a spring day in May 1905, before an old gabled roofed house, where blossoming cherry trees, a crisp blue sky and verdant landscape exalt the splendour of springtime. Akin to an Impressionist artist delighting in en plein air painting, Pokhitonov manifests a predilection for capturing a transitory moment in time, and exploring the effects of light and colour. Delicate visible brushstrokes are orchestrated with a fleeting expressive quality, with small specks of impasto paint enhancing textural richness. Dandelions and buttercups embellish the lawn, the finely rendered blossom trees silhouetted against the skyline convey the freshness and immediacy of the artist’s exceptional painterly prowess. A master of miniature form, Pokhitonov’s encounter with the Barbizon School had encouraged him to embrace small-scale formats, and to work on panel as a primary support. A synergy of Impressionist and Barbizon practice, Pokhitonov fuses European artistic influence, transforming it into his own artistic idiom in Zhabovshchina.
Absent from human presence, Pokhitonov creates a scene of pictorial tranquillity, and the harmonious balance between the blue sky and fecund landscape creates a chromatic vitality and vibrancy. He succeeds in distilling the eternal from a transitory moment in time, creating a scene, which in technique and subject matter is akin to poetry in paint.
Pokhitonov’s mastery of landscape painting and his patriotic affection for his homeland is brought to the fore in the charming and idyllic Zhabovshchina, Minsk province. The present work acts as a personal souvenir, tenderly recording in paint a place close to the artist’s heart, imbued with both nostalgia for a country rediscovered, and contentment in the present. Pokhitonov had returned to Russia in the early 1900s and soon found an artistic refuge on a small estate at Zhabovshchina,where between 1902 and 1906 he found inspiration in capturing the bucolic bliss of the estate in changing seasons. Pokhitonov’s Zhabovshchina works are therefore unique personal snapshots in time extolling the artist’s love for his homeland.
Pokhitonov transports the viewer to a spring day in May 1905, before an old gabled roofed house, where blossoming cherry trees, a crisp blue sky and verdant landscape exalt the splendour of springtime. Akin to an Impressionist artist delighting in en plein air painting, Pokhitonov manifests a predilection for capturing a transitory moment in time, and exploring the effects of light and colour. Delicate visible brushstrokes are orchestrated with a fleeting expressive quality, with small specks of impasto paint enhancing textural richness. Dandelions and buttercups embellish the lawn, the finely rendered blossom trees silhouetted against the skyline convey the freshness and immediacy of the artist’s exceptional painterly prowess. A master of miniature form, Pokhitonov’s encounter with the Barbizon School had encouraged him to embrace small-scale formats, and to work on panel as a primary support. A synergy of Impressionist and Barbizon practice, Pokhitonov fuses European artistic influence, transforming it into his own artistic idiom in Zhabovshchina.
Absent from human presence, Pokhitonov creates a scene of pictorial tranquillity, and the harmonious balance between the blue sky and fecund landscape creates a chromatic vitality and vibrancy. He succeeds in distilling the eternal from a transitory moment in time, creating a scene, which in technique and subject matter is akin to poetry in paint.