Ivan Silych Goriushkin-Sorokopudov

There cardboard is dirty in places with some media staining above the boat. There are some dents to the top left corner, lower edge and in a small area above the centre. There are small patches of paintloss throughout and surface scratches, the longest approximately 16cm in the right hand section. Held in a wooden frame under glass. Unexamined out of frame.
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NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

There were two figures who made a deep impression on Goriushkin-Sorokopudov as a young man: Pavel Vlasov, his first tutor in Astrakhan, and Ilya Repin, who taught him at the St Petersburg Academy of Arts from 1895 alongside Kustodiev, Maliavin, Bilibin and Feshin. Repin undoubtedly developed the young artist's interest in the historical genre and his early work is steeped in the traditions and scenes of patriarchal Russia and the associated solemnity and splendour. Goriushkin-Sorokopudov's studio was filled with folk costumes, priests' vestments and ancient weaponry which he would use to adorn his models and even dressed up in himself.

But however romanticised these medieval scenes might seem, his paintings exude the warmth and spirituality of deeply held convictions and were certainly not born of a pose conceived in a studio. Goriushkin-Sorokopudov travelled extensively around Russia, sketching the monks, domes and wooden walls of ancient cities such as Uglich, Suzdal, Rostov, Astrakhan and Saratov. Some of his strongest compositions have religious themes; lot 166, depicting Christ in conversation with a Catholic priest, may be based on The Legend of the Grand Inquisitor, the famous section in chapter five of Dostoyevsky's The Brothers Karamazov.  In many ways though, his landscapes are equally emotive. As a boy, he used to work on steamers travelling up and down the Volga and the delicate, slightly nostalgic half-light that covers the broad expanses in Sandbar speaks of his deeply ingrained knowledge and love of the country that characterises his best work.