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拍品專文
Woodland brook is one of the most important paintings from Korovin's early oeuvre to appear at auction in recent years. Cherished in the same private collection alongside masterworks by Isaak Levitan (Summer Day, sold Christie’s London, 29 November 2010, lot 29, £690,850) and Viktor Vasnetov (A Bogatyr, sold Christie’s London, 28 November 2011, lot 63, £1,105,250) since the late 1920s, the painting has not been seen by the public for over 70 years.
Considered by many to be the first Russian Impressionist, Konstantin Korovin is often credited with imbuing French Impressionism with a distinctly Russian sensibility. Despite extensive travel and his eventual emigration to France in 1923, he forever remained devoted to his homeland and embraced its influence. In a letter to his friend and peer, Apollinarii Vasnetsov (1856-1933) in 1893, he wrote of Versailles: '...I liked the gardens but the part that gave me real joy was the grass and some of the trees, things that reminded me of Russia'.
At auction, Korovin’s neon-lit Parisian night scenes, or atmospheric interiors with figures silhouetted against windows are most common, yet his exuberant paeans to nature are most highly prized. Having studied under the famous landscape painters Aleksei Savrasov (1830-1897) and Vasilii Polenov (1844-1927) at the Moscow School of Painting Sculpture and Architecture, Korovin combined the tenets of the Peredvizhniki with a commitment to capturing the ineffable essence of what he saw: Whatever I painted, whether a street or a house, I could not be satisfied until I had captured nature's very breath, the very motif (the artist quoted in A. Kamensky, Konstantin Korovin, Leningrad, 1988, p. 4).
Korovin's adventures in Norway and Russia's bleak North produced severe, sombre landscapes; by contrast, his joyful trips to Crimea are documented by compositions tempered by the warm Mediterranean sun. A rare and early work, Woodland brook transports the viewer into a lush forest idyll, created by Korovin’s abbreviated feathery brushstrokes in emerald and celadon greens. Korovin treats the composition like an embroidery, cross-hatching flashes of pigment like richly-coloured threads. The result is a woven tapestry of light and colour, masterfully evoking the familiar terrain of his homeland with its scattered birches.
Considered by many to be the first Russian Impressionist, Konstantin Korovin is often credited with imbuing French Impressionism with a distinctly Russian sensibility. Despite extensive travel and his eventual emigration to France in 1923, he forever remained devoted to his homeland and embraced its influence. In a letter to his friend and peer, Apollinarii Vasnetsov (1856-1933) in 1893, he wrote of Versailles: '...I liked the gardens but the part that gave me real joy was the grass and some of the trees, things that reminded me of Russia'.
At auction, Korovin’s neon-lit Parisian night scenes, or atmospheric interiors with figures silhouetted against windows are most common, yet his exuberant paeans to nature are most highly prized. Having studied under the famous landscape painters Aleksei Savrasov (1830-1897) and Vasilii Polenov (1844-1927) at the Moscow School of Painting Sculpture and Architecture, Korovin combined the tenets of the Peredvizhniki with a commitment to capturing the ineffable essence of what he saw: Whatever I painted, whether a street or a house, I could not be satisfied until I had captured nature's very breath, the very motif (the artist quoted in A. Kamensky, Konstantin Korovin, Leningrad, 1988, p. 4).
Korovin's adventures in Norway and Russia's bleak North produced severe, sombre landscapes; by contrast, his joyful trips to Crimea are documented by compositions tempered by the warm Mediterranean sun. A rare and early work, Woodland brook transports the viewer into a lush forest idyll, created by Korovin’s abbreviated feathery brushstrokes in emerald and celadon greens. Korovin treats the composition like an embroidery, cross-hatching flashes of pigment like richly-coloured threads. The result is a woven tapestry of light and colour, masterfully evoking the familiar terrain of his homeland with its scattered birches.