Gods and Foolish Grandeur: Interiors by Stanislav Zhukovsky

1917.

Stylistically, these interiors are the opposite of those by Premazzi, who I posted about last week. While the work of that transplanted Italian has a decidedly pre-Impressionist precision and quietude - though he was still able to wonderfully capture the atmosphere of the grand rooms he portrayed - Zhukovsky was a whole-hearted Impressionist, with his rough brushwork, sometimes skewed perspective, and often wildly vivid, unexpected color. In many of his paintings that color is so saturated - and saturating - that it almost becomes a pattern in itself, the real reason behind the image. But in his work here - at least in the more intimate of the settings I've selected - he still manages to wonderfully capture the sense that these rooms are truly lived in: the breeze ruffling the leaves in the trees beyond the flung-open windows, and birdsong; the warmth of the sun streaming in and the smell of that warmth on the upholstery and rugs and polished wood, the smell of books and cut flowers; the creak of the floorboards as, just out of view, the people who inhabit these rooms go about their lives.