Russia's Rich Cultural Heritage

Russia's rich cultural heritage represents the best of human creativity. Its literature, music, visual and performing arts and architecture are among the most profound, compelling and beautiful expressions of the human spirit.

Much of this rich heritage is well known in the United States, such as the writing of Leo Tolstoy and Fyodor Dostoevsky, the music of Peter Tchaikovsky, Serge Prokofiev and Igor Stravinsky, the painting of Ilya Repin and Vassily Kadinsky, the architecture of the Kremlin and State Hermitage Museum and the dance of the Bolshoi Ballet.

Less well known in this tradition of creativity is the painting of the Russian Impressionist period, lasting from approximately 1930 to 1980. Russian Impressionism made an important contribution to the cultural heritage of Russia, but until recently, little has been known of its beauty and quality and its leading artists because of Soviet isolationism. It is now being collected and recognized by art historians, museum directors, curators and collectors as some of the best art produced in the twentieth century.

The Russian Vision

Impressionists in Russia celebrated the common people, depicting their lives, hopes, dreams and emotions in an intimate manner. Instead of incorporating twentieth century western artistic innovations, artists focused deeply on land, people and the new social experiment founded in Mother Russia. Their art was meant to enrich the lives of all people.
As V. Kostin wrote:

"We want our art, like the art of the classics, to evoke excitement and love, so that in it people will find an immense vitality of theme, a true mastery of form, force and beauty. Our painting must be rich, sonorous, varied. It must speak of the fate of human beings, their struggles, their remarkable aims. It must assist the birth of great human consciousness, great ideas and strong emotions."

Intellectual and Stylistic Influences

Stylistically, Russian Impressionism was deeply influenced by many of the characteristics of French Impressionism, including a sense of freedom, spontaneity and vibrant emotion, using heavy brush strokes, light palette, plein aire style and bold color, all translated into a strong, purely Russian sensibility. Depictions of the laboring peasantry by French artists Francois Millet and Gustave Courbet as well as the works of Eugene Boudin and Edouard Manet also influenced the subject matter of Russian Impressionism.

Emotionally and intellectually, it grew out of the reactions of Tolstoy, Mussorgsky, Repin and other influential artists to the political upheavals of nineteenth century Czarist Russia and the deplorable living conditions of the common people. A comparison can be drawn to the development of French Impressionism in which the subject matter and style of Courbet, Millet, Manet and other early Impressionists was influenced by social and political upheaval in Western Europe.

The result is an increasingly valuable and collectable genre created by outstanding Russian Impressionists. This body of work carries forward the rich cultural heritage of Russia in a style that is historically significant, original in composition and form and beautiful in its depiction of the human spirit.