Siberian Beauty (1891) by Vasily Surikov

The author's project by Irina Antonova “Itinerants and Impressionists. Towards the 20th Century” has been prepared for the 37^th International Music Art Festival “December Evenings of Svyatoslav Richter”. The exposition is a continuation of the long-term exhibition strategy of the Pushkin Fine Arts Museum, based on the dialogue between Western and Russian art. In a single exhibition space you will find art works by both the Itinerants and Impressionists from the collections of the largest museums of Russia. Two of the greatest phenomena in the art culture of the 19^th century are compared here. Artistic views and stylistics of the Itinerants and Impressionists often diverge, but sometimes they find unexpected parallels and things in common.
The exhibition includes about 80 works of art. These include works by masters of the 19^th – 20^th centuries, paintings and graphic works by French and Russian artists from the collection of the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts, as well as works by the Itinerants from the collection of the State Tretyakov Gallery and the State Russian Museum in St. Petersburg.
In its projects, the museum traditionally considers aspects of mutual influences, parallels and dialogues in the works by artists of different eras and countries. Some of the most striking examples of such exhibitions are: “Moscow - Paris. 1900-1930” (1982), “Moscow-Berlin. 1900-1950” (1996), “Russia - Italy. Through the ages. From Giotto to Malevich” (2005), “The Voices of the Imaginary Museum of Andre Malraux” (2016-2017).
The exposition "Itinerants and Impressionists. Towards the 20^th Century” is based on the scientific research by the largest art historian Nina Alexandrovna Dmitrieva (1917-2003). The peculiarity of her scientific approach was the aspiration to see Russian art in a global context, highlight its originality and place among other European art schools. The article “Itinerants and Impressionists” was the result of reflections upon the formation of a generation of artists with a different worldview and attitude in France and Russia alike. That generation was encouraged to combat academism and came to solve similar problems in various ways.
Following the researcher’s concept, the authors of the exhibition have illustrated a single cultural process and displayed the common background of the artistic life of Russia and France in the last quarter of the 19th century. They have related these two significant phenomena through the example of their brightest representatives. The visitors of the exposition will see the comparisons of paintings by Eduard Manet vs. Ilya Repin and Vladimir Makovsky, Alfred Sisley vs. Alexei Savrasov, Valentin Serov vs. Pablo Picasso, Nikolai Yaroshenko vs. Pierre Auguste Renoir, and Mikhail Vrubel vs. Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec.
The exhibition also presents works by post-impressionists, namely Paul Cezanne, Vincent Van Gogh, and Paul Gauguin. They were not bonded with a common program and artistic method, but were contemporaries and "disciples" of the Impressionists.
Where: The main building of the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts
Address: 12, Volkhonka Street, next to Kropotkinskaya, Borovitskaya and Lenin Library metro stations, Moscow.
When: from November 30, 2017 to February 25, 2018
See details on website