In the absence of human complication - a selection of landscapes by Konstantin Somov

 

In the Park of Versailles, 1894.

Like so many of his artist contemporaries, members of the Mir Iskusstva group, Somov produced work in a wide range of subject matter. Whether in pencil, charcoal, chalk, or in watercolor, gouache, tempera, and oil, he was incredibly prolific, creating countless portraits, historicist genre scenes, book illustrations, work for the theater, interiors, still-lives, erotica. And he certainly painted landscapes, but when he did they were almost always peopled with frolicking, overdressed - or underdressed - ladies, or passionate lovers from mythology; Nature was only a backdrop for the human pageant. So I was delighted to find these examples of straightforward, masterful - and humanless - landscape paintings.

Landscape with Grey Clouds, 1897.

 Overgrown Pond, 1899.

Bosquet, 1901.

Ploughland, 1900.

 A Path Between the Birch Trees, 1914.

Landscape with Lake, 1896.

Green Slope on the Road. Martyshkino, 1902.

Rainbow I, 1908.

Oranienbaum, 1901.

Forest, 1900.

Twilight. Evening Landscape with a Lilac Bush on the Right, 1921.

Autumn in the Park at Versailles, 1898.

After the Rain, 1896.

Landscape, 1908.

Summer Landscape, 1900.

A Clearing by the Lake, 1908.

Before Sundown, 1900.

Woodland, 1903.

Edge of the Forest. Ligovo, 1894.

Garden, 1897.

Summer Twilight. Pond, 1897.

Grove by the Sea, 1900.

The Grand Staircase, Gardens of Versailles, 1897. (The western of the Escaliers des Cent Marches that flank the Orangerie.)

And then sometimes a few people aren't so bad....

Twilight in the Old Park, 1897.

Bathers, 1899.

Et in arcadia ego - selected paintings of Konstantin Bogaevsky

Morning, 1910.

‏Tropical Landscape, 1906.

Southern Land - Cave Town, 1908.

Altars, 1907.

The Last Rays of the Sun, 1903.

Romantic Landscape, 1908.

Landscape with rocks - Stary Krym, 1908.

Classical Landscape, 1910.

A Cloud, 1910.

Mount St. George, 1911.

Italian Landscape, 1911.

 Earth Cimmerian, 1911.

Landscape with a Castle, 1912.

Ships, 1912.

Eastern Altar, 1919.

A Cloud, 1925.

 Landscape with Trees, 1927.

Feodosia, 1930.

Crimean Landscape, 1930.

The Dnieper Power Plant, 1930.

The City of the Future, 1932.

Port of an Imaginary City, 1932.

Evening by the Sea, 1940.

Mountain Landscape, 1942.

*

Konstantin Fyodorovich Bogaevsky (24 January/12 January OS 1872, Feodosia - 17 February 1943, Feodosia), Russian painter notable for his Symbolist landscapes. Born in the Crimea to an old Italian-German family he took first lessons in art from Ivan Aivazovsky and, from 1891 to 1897, he studied at the Imperial Academy of Arts under the tutelage of Arkhip Kuindzhi. There, his work was not appreciated and, at one point, he was even temporarily discharged from the Academy for "lack of talent". Despite this, Kuindzhi always had a high respect for his pupil and protected him. In 1898 he traveled to Italy and France where he became acquainted with the works of Claude Lorrain, a painter whose art was a great influence on his own. That same year saw his first exhibition, in Moscow. From 1900 he worked in his home town of Feodosia, his main theme being the landscapes of a non-existent land - known to his friends as Bogaevia - that he said he only saw in his dreams. His work began to gain in popularity after poet and critic Maximilian Voloshin published a series of essays on the artist, giving high praise to the symbolism in his paintings.

Bogaevsky was a member of Mir iskusstva, Union of Russian Artists, and the Zhar-Tsvet; his work was often compared to his contemporary Nicholas Roerich, a colleague in the first two organizations. In 1906 his paintings were included in the Exposition de l'Art Russe organized by Sergei Diaghilev and held in the Petit Palais in Paris. He revisited Italy in 1911 and discovered the paintings of Andrea Mantegna, which were strongly influential on his own later work. He returned to Feodosia in 1912 where he remained for the rest of his life. After the Revolution he retreated into relative obscurity. He died in his home town at the age of seventy-one. In 1971 a minor planet was named in his honor: 3839 Bogaevskij.