For Maximov, a recognised master of the village subject, everything in the lives of the peasants, to whom he was intimately close, was important: their customs and beliefs, their spiritual world, their difficulties and sorrows, and their everyday life, including the environment that surrounded them. In 1869, the artist lived in the village of Chernyavino, where he executed an entire series of drawings and studies for paintings, many of which the artist used to create finished paintings. In particular, Red Corner in an Izba, painted during that period from life, was used in the creation of the 1872 painting Family Prayer, for which Maximov was unanimously elected as a member of the Society of Travelling Art Exhibitions. In the painting, we see the same carved icon case in the corner and icons arranged around it in an almost identical way to the study. In the study, Maximov aimed to depict the red corner in the evening as faithfully as possible. This was when one could see darkness through the window and the hut’s room was illuminated by dim light. The warm harmonious colour palette was built upon carefully selected shades of brown and lived up by the red paint daubs of Christ’s robes, the Mother of God, and saints, illuminated by lamps.

Maximov Vasily

Maximov, Vasily Maximovich
1844, Lopino (St Petersburg Province) å 1911, St Petersburg
Painter,portraitist,genreartist.Workedaticon-paint¬ing studios of Vasily Peshekhonov and K. A. Yary¬gin in St Petersburg (1855–1863). Studied at the Imperial Academy of Arts (1862–1866), graduated with a title of third-class artist. Member of an Artel of Artists created by Pyotr Krestonostsev by the example of Ivan Kramskoi Artel (1864–1865). Aca¬demician (from 1870). Member of the Society of Travelling Art Exhibitions (from 1871). Contributed to the exhibitions of the Imperial Academy of Arts (from 1878), World Exhibition in Paris (1878), All-Russian Exhibition in Moscow (1882).