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Lot Essay
Famous for his awe-inspiring panoramas of the Russo-Persian War (1805-1813), the Battle of Borodino (1812) and the Siege of Sevastopol (1854-1855), Franz Roubaud was born in Odessa in 1856 but spent the majority of his life abroad.
While completing his studies at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich, Roubaud frequently travelled to Ukraine, the Caucasus and Central Asia to sketch the exotic landscapes and local people, capturing their customs and way of life. Working in the wake of Vasily Vereshchagin, whose unflinching depictions of the horrors of war resulted in censorship to the point of self-imposed exile, Roubaud was afforded greater freedom than many of his contemporaries, largely due to the fact that he was based in Munich. The time that he spent with the Caucasian people resulted in an evident sympathy for these ‘children of the mountains’ as testified by the Ukrainian historian V. S. Krivenko: ‘Roubaud, a foreigner by his parentage and a Russian by the location of his birth and his early education, comprehended our South magnificently.’ (quoted in O. Fedorova, Frants Rubo, Moscow, 1982, p. 17).
A Tale of the Caucasus is a mature work, demonstrating Roubaud’s stagecraft and ability to charge a canvas with palpable real-life drama. Enter stage left a fleeing horseman, pursued by determined riders. The scene has a cinematic quality; the tonal harmony of the palette provides a perfect backdrop to the superbly observed horse as it strains to gallop faster and the excitement, fear even, of the horseman who flees for his life. As a contemporary critic wrote: ‘Mr Roubaud's greatest characteristic is the realistic sobriety of his manner and the simplicity so rarely found in our artists. Mr Roubaud doesn’t chase after pretentious effects, he remains true to nature and subject but views them through the subjective prism of his unique talent, revealing their poetical essence and meaning.’ (Ibid., p. 31).
While completing his studies at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich, Roubaud frequently travelled to Ukraine, the Caucasus and Central Asia to sketch the exotic landscapes and local people, capturing their customs and way of life. Working in the wake of Vasily Vereshchagin, whose unflinching depictions of the horrors of war resulted in censorship to the point of self-imposed exile, Roubaud was afforded greater freedom than many of his contemporaries, largely due to the fact that he was based in Munich. The time that he spent with the Caucasian people resulted in an evident sympathy for these ‘children of the mountains’ as testified by the Ukrainian historian V. S. Krivenko: ‘Roubaud, a foreigner by his parentage and a Russian by the location of his birth and his early education, comprehended our South magnificently.’ (quoted in O. Fedorova, Frants Rubo, Moscow, 1982, p. 17).
A Tale of the Caucasus is a mature work, demonstrating Roubaud’s stagecraft and ability to charge a canvas with palpable real-life drama. Enter stage left a fleeing horseman, pursued by determined riders. The scene has a cinematic quality; the tonal harmony of the palette provides a perfect backdrop to the superbly observed horse as it strains to gallop faster and the excitement, fear even, of the horseman who flees for his life. As a contemporary critic wrote: ‘Mr Roubaud's greatest characteristic is the realistic sobriety of his manner and the simplicity so rarely found in our artists. Mr Roubaud doesn’t chase after pretentious effects, he remains true to nature and subject but views them through the subjective prism of his unique talent, revealing their poetical essence and meaning.’ (Ibid., p. 31).