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Lot Essay
Mountains and Foothills was painted in 1914-1915 – an important period in the artist's creative and personal biography. In 1914, Volkov exhibited his works for the first time at a Kiev Art School students’ public exhibition. These paintings would also be shown at his first solo exhibition in Tashkent, in 1919. In 1915, he married Maria Ilyinichna Taratunina (1898-1925), who played a major role in his artistic life, becoming his inspiration and chief assistant.
Volkov spent half of the year at school in Kiev, and another half travelling around greater Tashkent, where he created a cycle of landscapes-symbols called Mountains and Foothills. This motif can be seen in travel photographs from the artist's family archive. Paintings with this motif first appeared while he was still a student in St Petersburg (1912), but almost none of them have survived. They can only be seen in photographs of the room where Volkov lived and painted. The artist continued developing the Foothills theme numerously in 1913-1915.
In this painting Volkov finds a colour scheme that is most consonant with his vision of the world: it is a forceful, expressive colour, the basis of his philosophical and artistic system. Rich reds and browns, golden yellows and deep purples, underlined by contrasting shades of green, become the artist’s recognisable signature for many years to come.
The crystalline structure of the composition serves as evidence of the artist’s close acquaintance with the works of Mikhail Vrubel (1856-1910), whom Volkov considered to be his spiritual teacher, as well as the great influence of Byzantine mosaics of Saint Sophia’s Cathedral in Kiev.
We are grateful to Andrei Volkov, grandson of the artist, for providing this note.
Volkov spent half of the year at school in Kiev, and another half travelling around greater Tashkent, where he created a cycle of landscapes-symbols called Mountains and Foothills. This motif can be seen in travel photographs from the artist's family archive. Paintings with this motif first appeared while he was still a student in St Petersburg (1912), but almost none of them have survived. They can only be seen in photographs of the room where Volkov lived and painted. The artist continued developing the Foothills theme numerously in 1913-1915.
In this painting Volkov finds a colour scheme that is most consonant with his vision of the world: it is a forceful, expressive colour, the basis of his philosophical and artistic system. Rich reds and browns, golden yellows and deep purples, underlined by contrasting shades of green, become the artist’s recognisable signature for many years to come.
The crystalline structure of the composition serves as evidence of the artist’s close acquaintance with the works of Mikhail Vrubel (1856-1910), whom Volkov considered to be his spiritual teacher, as well as the great influence of Byzantine mosaics of Saint Sophia’s Cathedral in Kiev.
We are grateful to Andrei Volkov, grandson of the artist, for providing this note.