Genre painting in Russian Critical RealismIt was genre painting that the Itinerants favoured above all other forms as the one best suited for discussing the most urgent social problems of the day. Their genre pictures touched upon themes borrowed from private as well as public life and were always profoundly democratic and psychological. They were an encyclopedia of Russian life of that time, describing as they did the social position of various strata of the population. An important innovation in the genre painting of the Itinerants was the large multifigure composition where the crowd, in all its diversity of faces and characters, was brought to the forefront as the protagonist of the piece. Common people were depicted by them with a deep understanding of the burden of poverty and oppression they were to bear. Some of the itinerant genre paintings are lyrical, devoted to love, motherhood ad friendship.
Exercise 9. Choose a genre painting belonging to the trend of Russian Critical Realism and prove that the above mentioned is true. Suggested works: Miasoyedov’s “The Zemstvo is Dining”; S. Ivanov’s “Death of a Migrant Peasant”; N. Kasatkin’s “Coalminers. On Shift”; N. Yaroshenko’s “The Stoker”; A. Arkhipov’s “Laundresses”, Repin’s “Religious Procession in Kursk Province” and others.
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