Nikolai Petrovich Bogdanov-Belsky

Original canvas. There is some light surface dirt and discoloured varnish. UV light reveals no signs of retouching. Held in a simple black painted wood frame and unexamined out of frame.
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The renowned Russian artist and academician, Nikolai Bogdanov-Belsky lived permanently in Riga from the autumn of 1921. It was in Latvia's eastern territory of Latgalia that he found the source of his artistic inspiration.

 

During the years spent in this picturesque region, he painted a multitude of works depicting peasant children in the surrounding countryside. These paintings continued the theme of his Russian period and, as in Russia, the artist was highly acclaimed.

One of his solo exhibitions held in Riga in 1936 included the work Country Boys, depicting two youths looking fixedly into the distance. Their bare feet and rustic clothes spoke of their social status but at the same time, their radiant expressions revealed their spontaneity and purity.

 

These characters appear in numerous of the artist's paintings of children.

The artist himself remarked, "There is something dear to all mankind in this age, those soft facial features, those colourful children's figures. And maybe, it's exactly peasant children, devoid of city culture and that uniform grooming, which leaves a face devoid of character, will always attract attention and appeal."

This version was published in the Latvian journal Atpûta on 20 March 1936 and eventually acquired by the Museum of Fine Art in Latvia (fig.1).

 

Soon after the exhibition took place, Bogdanov-Belsky repeated this composition but including some additional details that gave the work a new meaning. Two houses can be seen on the horizon, further underlining the fact that these characters belong in this place. The leaves of the trees in the centre are rendered in greater detail; the foreshortening of the birches to the right has been slightly altered; the colours of the grass and the flowers in the meadow are more vivid.

 

The feather-like clouds in the grey sky have grown cumulous, and through them it is possible to glimpse bright blue shafts of light. The composition has become much brighter, allowing the artist to express the impressionist vision that stems from his observation of nature. This is what is most remarkable about the offered lot, and comparison of these two treatments of the same subject allows us to trace the artist's creative process.

We are grateful to Nina Lapidus, author of the monograph on Nikolai Bogdanov-Belsky published by Bely gorod in 2005, for providing this note.