Konstantin Yakovlevich Kryzhitsky

Alfred Blohm Collection, Hamburg
Thence by descent

Structural Condition The canvas is unlined on a conventional wooden keyed stretcher. This is ensuring an even and secure structural support. Paint surface The paint surface has an even varnish layer. Inspection under ultra-violet light shows very minimal retouchings which are predominately very small areas along the upper and lower horizontal framing edges and tiny spots in the upper left of the sky. Summary The painting is therefore in very good and stable condition and no further work is required
"This lot is offered for sale subject to Sotheby's Conditions of Business, which are available on request and printed in Sotheby's sale catalogues. The independent reports contained in this document are provided for prospective bidders' information only and without warranty by Sotheby's or the Seller."

Depictions of the Russian countryside did not appear consistently until the second half of the 19^th century, when the intelligentsia urged Russian subject matter as a means to asserting independence. By the 1880s it was established as a leading genre with two distinct strains: the first celebrated the lyrical experience of the landscape, for instance in Savrasov's work; the offered lot is an outstanding example of the second strain – a celebration of the epic dimensions and perception of Russia's vast expanse.

Leading exponents of this school included Kryzhitsky's teacher at the Academy of Arts Mikhail Klodt, and Ivan Shishkin. Just as Shishkin's monumental canvases demonstrate that 'in Russia, nature is simply too enormous for human comprehension' (Henk van Os, Russian Landscape, The National Gallery, 2004), the inhospitable vastness depicted in the offered work has a similar effect of causing the viewer to lose his composure. Set against an overwhelming backdrop, the vulnerable figures of mother and child are reduced to insignificance and bring dizzying perspective to the composition.  Evidence of insubstantial clearings in the distance and the young trees growing on the verges in the foreground emphasise the limited impact of human intervention on the surroundings. In a typical overlap between genre and landscape painting, the encroaching shadows introduce a further narrative element – where will this mother and child find themselves when night falls?

The image of the road was a recurring symbol in 19^th century literary and pictorial depictions of the motherland, from Gogol's Dead Souls to Mikhail Klodt's Distant Forest at Noon, 1876 (fig 1). As Vladimir Lenyashin comments in Times of Year. Landscape in Russian painting (2006), "The road becomes a means of escaping this boundlessness, a path to the Promised Land, a means of formulating an individual spiritual identity". In the emotive debate over national identity, fuelled by Hegelian philosophy, the artist became a figure who was able to express the soul of the people through the countryside and make it visible. Kryzhitsky's efforts to fulfil these high expectations in the offered landscape demonstrate why his work was sought after by both Alexander III and Pavel Tretyakov.