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Spring. 1898–1901
Borisov-Musatov V.E.,
Oil on canvas
71 x 98
State Russian Museum
Annotation
This is one of the milestones in the artist’s creative work and probably the first successful attempt to express his search for perfection in a single artistic image. The idea of this picture came to the artist in his Sleptsovka manor with a shady wild park and a house covered in wines. This was the place where he felt the charm of the old times. A spirit-like female figure that seems to glide around the garden is an embodiment of beauty and harmony, a poetic dream of the artist, a symbol of a light, ephemeral, and floating world created by him.
The belle époque created by the artist and depicted in the majority of his works is a convention that is far from reality. Decorative properties of this composition and its soft tones make it look like a tapestry rather than a painting. Composer S.N. Vasilenko who knew the artist and was inspired by the finesse and melodiousness of this works called them “painted music”.
Author's Biography
Borisov-Musatov Victor
Borisov-Musatov, Victor Elpidiforovich
1870, Saratov - 1905, Tarusa
Painter, draughtsman. Studied under Vasily Konovalov in Saratov (from 1886), under Vasily Polenov at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture (1890-91, 1893-95), under Pavel Chistyakov at the Imperial Academy of Arts (1891-93) and at the Academic Fernand Connon in Paris (1895-98). Member of the Moscow Fellowship of Artists (1899) and the Union of Russian Artists (1903). Contributed to exhibitions (from 1885). Contributed to the periodical exhibitions of the Moscow Society of Lovers of the Arts (1898) and the exhibitions of the Moscow Fellowship of Artists (1899-1905), Scarlet Rose (1904), Union of Russian Artists (1904-05), Salon des Independants (1905), Salon de la Nationale (1905), Salon d''Automne (1905) and the World of Art (1906).