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拍品专文
Alexei Korzukhin was born into a serf family in Ekaterinburg in 1835. In his youth Korzukhin spent much time copying icons in the Church of the Transfiguration in Uktus, under the direction of the sexton. He entered the Imperial Academy of Arts in St. Petersburg in 1857, where he began in the class of historical painting under Feodor Bruni and Petr Basin. In 1861 he received his first award for his painting, The Drunken Father.
1861 also marked the date of the emancipation of the serfs, and Korzukhin's artistic development coincided with the enlightened political atmosphere of the time. Korzukhin's academic and professional career continued to advance. He received regular portrait commissions, but his main interest lay in genre scenes depicting the lives of everyday people.
Korzukhin was associated with the most innovative tendencies in Russian art in the latter part of the 19th century; he was an essential force in the Revolt of the Fourteen of 1863, and a founding member of the Wanderers in 1870. However, he did not always agree with the ardent principles of his colleagues, and at times was considered an outsider. Korzukhin's genre paintings were important social commentaries, yet they were characterized by a level of sentimentality that was generally avoided by the Wanderers. In this way Korzukhin was unique, but certainly reflected the spirit of the time.
Peasant Girls in the Forest is related to another painting of the same title in the Perm State Art Gallery that Korzukhin painted a year later, in 1878. In the present work, Korzukhin captures a dramatic moment in which three young girls, gathering mushrooms or berries in the forest, are startled by an unexpected sound or sight. Korzukhin heightens the dramatic effect with his lighting and composition; the young girls cling to each other and huddle beneath a tree which seems to both support and threaten them with its spindly branches. The figures are bathed in a bright light that highlights their fearful expressions and emphasizes the darkness of the surrounding forest. Korzukhin's emotional engagement with his subjects can be clearly felt in this work.
This painting belonged for many years to Vice Admiral Newton A. McCully, a remarkable figure in United States-Russian naval history. Born in South Carolina in 1867, he entered the Naval Academy in Annapolis and pursued a naval career. In early 1904 he received orders to travel to St. Petersburg as the official United States Navy observer during the Russo-Japanese war. Although he had no experience in Russian affairs, this proved to be the beginning of a lifelong involvement with Russia.
Upon the outbreak of World War I ten years later, he was again posted to Russia as United States naval attaché. He served in this capacity until the summer of 1917, learning to speak Russian and developing a great interest in, and sympathy for, Russian people and culture. In September 1918, McCully was promoted to Rear Admiral and named Commander of the United States naval forces in North Russia during the Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War. After the Allied withdrawal, McCully proceeded to the Crimea as the official United States diplomatic representative to the White forces under the command of Generals Denikin and Wrangel.
Throughout this period, Admiral McCully constantly tried to alleviate the suffering of the victims of the Russian Civil War. He pressured the U.S. government to send relief supplies and helped arrange for Wrangel's troops and their families to be evacuated from the Crimea on U.S. warships. Although a bachelor, he himself adopted six Russian children and raised them in the United States (Fig. 2). He eventually settled in St. Augustine, Florida and died in 1951. (C. Weeks, An American Naval Diplomat in Revolutionary Russia: The Life and Times of Vice Admiral Newton A. McCully, Annapolis, 1993.)
1861 also marked the date of the emancipation of the serfs, and Korzukhin's artistic development coincided with the enlightened political atmosphere of the time. Korzukhin's academic and professional career continued to advance. He received regular portrait commissions, but his main interest lay in genre scenes depicting the lives of everyday people.
Korzukhin was associated with the most innovative tendencies in Russian art in the latter part of the 19th century; he was an essential force in the Revolt of the Fourteen of 1863, and a founding member of the Wanderers in 1870. However, he did not always agree with the ardent principles of his colleagues, and at times was considered an outsider. Korzukhin's genre paintings were important social commentaries, yet they were characterized by a level of sentimentality that was generally avoided by the Wanderers. In this way Korzukhin was unique, but certainly reflected the spirit of the time.
Peasant Girls in the Forest is related to another painting of the same title in the Perm State Art Gallery that Korzukhin painted a year later, in 1878. In the present work, Korzukhin captures a dramatic moment in which three young girls, gathering mushrooms or berries in the forest, are startled by an unexpected sound or sight. Korzukhin heightens the dramatic effect with his lighting and composition; the young girls cling to each other and huddle beneath a tree which seems to both support and threaten them with its spindly branches. The figures are bathed in a bright light that highlights their fearful expressions and emphasizes the darkness of the surrounding forest. Korzukhin's emotional engagement with his subjects can be clearly felt in this work.
This painting belonged for many years to Vice Admiral Newton A. McCully, a remarkable figure in United States-Russian naval history. Born in South Carolina in 1867, he entered the Naval Academy in Annapolis and pursued a naval career. In early 1904 he received orders to travel to St. Petersburg as the official United States Navy observer during the Russo-Japanese war. Although he had no experience in Russian affairs, this proved to be the beginning of a lifelong involvement with Russia.
Upon the outbreak of World War I ten years later, he was again posted to Russia as United States naval attaché. He served in this capacity until the summer of 1917, learning to speak Russian and developing a great interest in, and sympathy for, Russian people and culture. In September 1918, McCully was promoted to Rear Admiral and named Commander of the United States naval forces in North Russia during the Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War. After the Allied withdrawal, McCully proceeded to the Crimea as the official United States diplomatic representative to the White forces under the command of Generals Denikin and Wrangel.
Throughout this period, Admiral McCully constantly tried to alleviate the suffering of the victims of the Russian Civil War. He pressured the U.S. government to send relief supplies and helped arrange for Wrangel's troops and their families to be evacuated from the Crimea on U.S. warships. Although a bachelor, he himself adopted six Russian children and raised them in the United States (Fig. 2). He eventually settled in St. Augustine, Florida and died in 1951. (C. Weeks, An American Naval Diplomat in Revolutionary Russia: The Life and Times of Vice Admiral Newton A. McCully, Annapolis, 1993.)